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Notes -
Just to make a general observation about the gender war as a followup to my comment on the Promise Keepers organization:
I think we can generally observe is that women’s main complaint about men is that desirable hetero men are unwilling to exclusively commit. If we accept this, we can also see that this is actually two complaints rolled into one. 1. The men that are willing to commit are undesirable (icky, clingy, lame, “chopped”, entitled, toxic, porn-addled, skinny fat etc.). 2. The men that are desirable are unwilling to commit. (On a tangent I’d argue that most of the lipstick feminist complaints made in the mainstream media by middle-class women about men in general do usually boil down to the rather similar complaint that 34-37-year-old successful, well-paid, charismatic, tall, ambitious etc. urban men are in no rush to marry 31-34-year-old college-educated middle-class office worker women.)
If we look at this logically, to the extent that it even makes sense to try doing so (which is a valid question in itself), there are two potential remedies for this problem. 1. Focus on the undesirable men that are willing to commit and somehow transform them into desirable men i.e. alphaize the betas 2. Focus on the desirable men and incentivize them to commit i.e. betaize the alphas.
Now I don’t know about you but to me it seems self-evident that #2 has more potential for success no matter how you look at it and yet virtually everyone who makes any sort of recommendations regarding this entire issue (and that does not only include Red Pillers) is promoting #1. No, really – I’ve never seen anyone advocate for #2, not even the Promise Keepers or, for that matter, any other similar group that does not claim to be feminist and is at the same time pushing the nebulous concept of a new positive masculinity.
Am I seeing things that are not there or is this really not the case? Because as far as I can tell, it is. It seems like there is a general unspoken consensus in society that trying to compel sexually successful men to commit to women is a completely impossible, pie-in-the-sky idea that deserves no attention at all; that, in other words, expecting modern women to elicit commitment from the men they are attracted to is laughable lunacy.
They're phrasing it this way to dodge the core source issue. Men that are desirable won't commit because women aren't willing to accept anyone they don't 'desire.'
Its hidden in the term 'desirable,' and how that is not an inherent property of men, but rather a descriptor that is almost entirely created in the mind of the female population. And thus can change without the men doing anything differently. Men do not get to decide what women find desirable, they can only hope to determine what that is and try to comply with it.
I could give my long, comprehensive argument (with stats!) showing that men are by and large the same as they've ever been, but women as a group have elevated their expectations while simultaneously becoming less appealing as mates.
I won't. I'll just point out my previous argument that I've yet to see contradicted: About 50% of the male population are 'invisible' to women. They don't register as human. They aren't even on their radar as possible mates, they are background noise... until they attempt to interact then they're 'creeps' or 'incels' or whatever. These men aren't even in the competition because to be 'desirable' you first have to be 'noticed.'
It is a blackpill, but there is not a single piece of evidence really contradicting it. A man who is the combination of 'average' height, 'average' salary, 'average' talent, fame, renown, and 'average' physical strength will not get female attention under modern circumstances. Hence why 'maxxxing' of one form or another is so popularized. Men HAVE to stand out along at least one dimension, ideally multiple, to even rise to attention, much less be attractive.
Flatly put: women aren't even registering that there exist men who are less than 'ideal' but would still make great partners. In their mind its that top 20% who ARE the standard, and there's maybe another 20-30% below that they could eventually settle for after their own sexual market value diminishes.
That bottom 50% is invisible. They are not part of the mental calculation when a woman is competing for a mate. Ask most women to describe what they think an 'average' man is like and it'll be an average derived from the sub-population of men they actually notice and care about.
Find me a SINGLE woman who will openly say "I'm actually perfectly fine with marrying a man who is not exceptional in any particular way, as long as he fulfills his role as a man." And its rational for them not to say that because that's just inviting a bunch of sub average dudes to come running in hopes of slipping past her apparently lowered defenses. They don't 'win' by advertising lower standards.
If this factor is true and accurate, there's no point in trying to address it on the male side of the equation. None. Expanding the pool of 'desireable' men entirely depends on women expanding their definition of 'desirable' to include an actual reasonable portion of the male population. Otherwise, most women will continue chasing a sub-population of men that BY DEFINITION they cannot all lock down... unless they're willing to share.
And even then, you have to get these women to become appealing to more men too.
And there is no aspect of culture ANYWHERE in the West that pushes women to do things that make them more appealing. None.
Which shows precisely where we could start trying solutions, doesn't it? Maybe look at the obvious area we're NOT doing things?
So lets simplify it: "The men women find desirable have no need to commit because they have many, many options available due to women finding them desirable. Women resent that they can't lock down these men but are also unwilling to adapt their behavior."
Is impossible in practice as it would merely raise the level of what women find 'desirable' to compensate. This happens in EVERY arena where ranking is easy to ascertain. The benefits will accrue to the top 10-20% at best. Women will adjust desires upward without hesitation.
Won't work because even if we marry off the top 10% of men and somehow ensure they stay committed... you haven't suddenly made the remaining population MORE desirable to the remaining women.
Look, I don't think women are the problem. But the problem is with women. Specifically, in their mind, in that they've formed cultural expectations that, via feedback loops, are completely divorced from reality and renders their own desires unachievable.
So... you have to address their desires. Reality can't be manipulated to fit their desires, so it seems obvious to me that you gotta at least TRY to make their desires comply with reality.
Although we've argued about this in the past, I don't disagree with you, in very broad strokes, about your key points. Women's expectations have gone up, women's desirability has gone down, and a lot of people are finding it hard to find a partner. I think the reasons are actually a lot more complicated and multi-faceted than "Women are unreasonably picky (bitches) and aren't willing to settle," but sure, that's part of it.
I am going to repeat one point that I have brought up before and add another one I haven't:
This kind of sugarcoats the whole notion of "settling." You're right, most women would not agree to that statement. How many men would agree to that (gender-swapped) statement? Probably more men than women, because yes, there are men who will settle for literally any willing pussy, while there aren't many women whose sole criteria is "penis." But there are not many men who would really be happy about settling for a woman who just checks the "sex, mother" boxes and nothing else.
(Caveat: Obviously I am talking about the West here. We know that in many parts of the world, "vagina and fertile" are indeed the only criteria men have. Are those cultures models we would wish to emulate?)
So how about being likeable as a person, being attractive and pleasant, being smart or at least sensible? (As Mr. Knightly said in the very redpilled era of 1816: "Men of sense do not want silly wives.") Most men don't want to settle either, even if their standards for "settling" are lower than the average woman's. Not to belabor the stereotype about incels thinking their obese cheeto-crumbed-neckbeards are entitled to a hot fit young blowjob enthusiast, but it's hard to avoid the impression that it do be like that from many of the most vocal grievance-mongers. This is somewhat unfair, but it's also somewhat unfair to just write off women as being unreasonably picky bitches who will not settle for less than the "three sixes". Both these stereotypes exist, but you keep bringing up things like the OKCupid survey (from, like, 15 years ago), which given the limited and narrow datasets (the attractiveness surveys, IIRC, mostly ask people to rate based on photographs alone) do not convince me you really have evidence that "50% of men are invisible to all women" and that no women will "settle" for a guy who is just a basically decent, normal man.
My other point:
On the one hand: sure. If it is true (big if) that chubby grocery clerk Sally is waiting for her 6/6/6 chad to marry her and let her live her life as a TikTok-watching SAHM, Sally should really adjust her expectations. But your notion that women should "make their desires comply with reality" really gives me "If you don't find fat/black/trans women attractive, you should work on yourself!" vibes. I know you are not saying that, but you are saying something in that ballpark: that people are responsible for who and what they find attractive and should be willing to change their attraction for the social good. That is going to be a pretty hard lift for anyone.
Men aren't even offered the choice, to be blunt.
Women are, and they reject it.
Soooooo... what is the point of telling men to change?
We had a system that was workable somewhere around a century ago and it has been on the decline since approximately the 70's..
I consistently point out that the marriage arrangement, especially when following the fairly strict Christian standard, solves for most of the issues.
Top 10% males are expected to pick and stick with a woman, removing that man from the field. They are also expected to NOT go around deflowering virgins or maintaining a rotation of women. (they will anyway in many cases, but they have to keep it discreet and DO suffer social sanction when discovered)
Men and women are expected to pick a partner relatively early, and stick with them once committed. So you don't have women dating around for the better part of a decade, standards rising all the time. You don't have men growing increasingly frustrated through repeated rejections from women.
And perhaps most important, the focus of the marriage is ensuring stability for the purpose of raising kids. So we de-emphasize the whole "sleep around and have fun for as long as possible before settling" element.
And finally, the Christian expectation "no sex until marriage" ensures that women are less likely to get exploited for sex without commitment, men can reasonably expect that they will be giving commitment to a relatively chaste woman, and thus the risks to each side are truncated.
But we tossed that entire standard out, and replaced it with... NOTHING!
So its base instincts and ad hoc social arrangements all the way down!
And nobody's happy! Yayyyyyyyy.
And to the extent we think marriage is the ideal solution... men continue to prioritize it as a goal just as much as they always have. Women continue to prioritize it less and less. Men desiring to get married went from 76% to 74% over 30 years. Women dropped from 83% to 61%. There's no question which gender is the driving force here.
So ONCE AGAIN. The problem is with women.
I don't know what else to tell ya. If the solution to this was to browbeat men, we'd have solved it a long time ago because that's all men get from every angle is constant browbeating.
You keep saying this. What little you've posted in the way of "data" is not very convincing, and the rest is vibes, which I will simply counter with my own impressions based on the people I see around me dating and getting married.
I am not saying there's no problem or that it isn't rough out there. It's just not the hopeless wasteland you keep presenting. Men and women are both getting a raw deal in a lot of ways, but you keep insisting it's all women's fault and poor <50% men never ever get a chance, which flies in the face of my observations.
Comparing 2025 to 1925 has so many conflating factors that trying to reduce men's dating woes to "Women have become too selective" is like saying our modern economic woes are because we moved off the gold standard. There may even be a degree to which that is true, but someone harping about the gold standard as the reason for everything wrong with the economy today is ... probably not seeing things clearly. Yes, women today can be more selective than they were in 1925. What are the reasons for that? I imagine you don't like your position being reduced to "Women should be forced to settle or starve," but how else to interpret "The problem is that women today don't have to get married to a man they don't particularly like"?
Despite being non-religious, I don't entirely disagree that "the Christian standard" had certain advantages, and I give you credit for arguing that we should impose the old rules on men as well as women-- if we force women to settle, we should also force men to stop alleycatting. But I don't really think we can do either without reverting to a level of authoritarianism we didn't have even then. Given that most people are not as religious as they used to be, and without a religious justification, you're basically going to have to impose state-mandated dating controls. Sounds like a cure worse than the disease.
So you keep saying. Women would argue that the problem is with men. We could go back and forth on to what degree this is self-centered female narcissism (your preferred theory) and to what degree this is men being of genuinely lower quality and women not actually needing to settle to avoid starving. You hate "men need to step up," but some men really do need to step up, and by that I do not mean they need to wife up carousel-riding Cathy at age 35, but I mean I see a hell of a lot of men who don't really bring much to the table at all other than "Penis, not a drug user (unless you count weed), has a job." Why would a woman want to settle for that if she doesn't have to? Why would you settle for that level of pickings?
I honestly do not see men who actually have something going for them unable to find a partner.
Assuming, of course, that their standards are not too high... You don't want fat Sally the checkout clerk or carousel-riding Cathy, fine. You insist on a 20-something slim attractive virgin who is agreeable and submissive? Hmm, good luck if you're not a 6/6/6. (Or a Mormon.)
I don't think the solution is to "browbeat" men, but I think moral disapprobation on both sexes has been implemented, historically. That horse is out of the barn. Give me a solution that doesn't reduce to "Women need to settle or starve." Or just "browbeat women instead."
I agree with your overall comment, but I've got to jump in here. 'Settle or starve' has never been the choice women had to make in the west. Not when we were hunter-gatherers (meat would shared within the band), not after the shift to agriculture (women can grow crops and make textiles for sale, hence the word 'spinster'), not after the industrial revolution (where there was ample factory and domestic work). Never.
Indeed, 'settle or starve' suggests that widows (who made up a huge percentage of women in societies before modern medicine) would just starve to death, which they didn't. People only starved to death during famines, when everyone was starving to death.
Except that spinsters lived, yes, but in poverty. So did domestic servants, prostitutes, etc. Women had a far smaller range of jobs available to them and earned far less from those jobs than men working them.
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Yeah, I've already addressed this to our snarky friend. Historically it wasn't really settle or starve, but it was settle or probably have an impoverished and empty life. My issue is, as I said, with modern incels and incel-adjacents who say things like "If a woman won't be led, she won't be fed."
Here on the Motte, some of them have a fondness for saying things like "maybe we should use what worked for 5000 years..." and if you read what they are proposing, it's basically that. Yes, they have a myopic, ahistorical view of the history of sex relations ( even ancient tribal societies did not resemble Tarnsmen of Gor).
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Because she does have to if she wants a long term relationship. The same 100% of women can't all have long term relationships with the 5% of men they swipe right on on the apps. If you are a college graduate woman working some office job, or at a school, you are a dime a dozen. You are the female equivalent of like a construction worker who drinks too much Budweiser during every Thursday night football game and ends up hungover at work Friday.
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I think of all the modernisms about the history of men and women that breaks my heart the most, this is probably it. Women only did it to not starve.
Whenever I feel like I might not be doing enough, I remind myself that inadequacy is impossible to escape as a man. If the men who came home from World War fucking Two weren't worthy, then it simply isn't achievable and never was.
There's nothing to be done. You can't have a solution that isn't just browbeating men that doesn't involve some level of browbeating non-men. It's impossible.
I don't actually think this was literally the case! Though certainly the situation for an unmarried woman was pretty dire in previous eras. Maybe not quite starvation level, but there is a reason so much Regency and Victorian literature was about women trying to find a husband before they aged out of any hope of doing better than seamstress or nanny.
It's the modern guys who have, I assure you, here on the Motte and elsewhere, been more or less explicit about wishing women had to settle in order to eat. Granted some of them may be ironic or trying to be edgy. I certainly hope most of them don't really want women to choose between dick and starving. But there are a fair number whom I believe are pretty literal.
Okay, but what's your solution that involves browbeating both men and women? As I told @faceh, that's basically been the line taken by most religions, and yet here we are. So do you propose morality laws, taking away all benefits for non-married or childless couples, or what? Some variation of those things has been tried also, with little success.
They didn't make it up themselves. They picked it up from the broader culture, and slapped a coat of And That's a Good Thing! paint on it.
Too many to count; the issue is that, like face guy's proposals, you'll reject them because they involve some measure of browbeating prescribed to non-men.
Here's something which could be done which does not entail browbeating women:
Give men a path to achieve social status. For example
The Amish forbid the use of modern agricultural machinery, which means that every man has a good opportunity to be a productive and respected member of the community.
Orthodox Judaism gives men the opportunity to engage in advanced religious studies, up to and including rabbinical ordination. Which means that every man has the opportunity to be a respected member of the community.
Since someone mentioned World War II, it's worth noting that the American men who were conscripted, to the extent they made it back in one piece, were awarded substantial social status.
In a society where (almost) every man gets a fair chance to achieve social status, the net effect is that (almost) every woman gets a fair chance to have a husband she can look up to. Which is a great way to get women into marriage.
Could these sorts of policies be implemented today on a large scale in the United States? I tend to doubt it. Feminists and other gynocentrists would freak out about any large-scale policy or social norm aimed at giving men any kind of boost. For feminists, EVERYTHING has to be about women, all the time.
And ultimately that's a big part of the problem, perhaps the core. Addressing the status quo around marriage, family, and birth rates will require norms and policies which assign special burdens and advantages on men and women. Our current society is just unwilling to accept special burdens on women or special advantages for men.
I shudder to think at what is likely to happen to relationships if 80% of the population ends up unemployed due to AI and we all get UBI.
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Nope, wrong. Don't presume to project sentiments onto me contrary to what I expressed.
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The usual dodge here is "Both have to change. Now, let's start with the men..."
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To be blunt, a lot of the complaints on here are men getting to see what it was like from the female point of view over those centuries of "no free choice for you but men can sow their wild oats and they decide if they finally want to marry at age forty".
My God, any potential mates are out there having sex, commitment-free sex, and are economically independent, plus picky about who they'll eventually settle for? They have options and freedom and exercise those options? How appalling!
Shoe on the other foot here, gentlemen, and very funny to see the solution being "force them to marry!". To take the example of one comment above, about "being this person is so disadvantageous in marriage, you are recommended not to marry" - if you're 34 and not married by that age, what is wrong with you? why so picky? why not get married straight out of high school (as some suggest women should be steered into it) and have your mother pick your potential spouse for you?
Would you say that those men were acting in a noble and becoming manner? If yes, good riddance to you. If not, then you should ponder why you feel the need to giggle about men (who have never lived in that world or acted in that way) getting a taste of medicine.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If, sixty or so years ago, women en masse had decided to be rampant whores but the continent and socially responsible men had refused to dally with the trollops, we wouldn't be having this conversation about "women: why aren't they getting married and pumping out babies?"
It takes two to tango, as they say, and men were delighted to have free milk but not have to buy the cow. Now buyer's regret has set in? Ah well, such is life!
...men who no longer exist and do not complain about this topic today (or maybe they do in their nursing homes). I guess I don't get your point. Because some people were shitty back then it justifies other people doing shitty things today?
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While the historical double standard is real, it was supported by widespread prostitution, not a one sided hookup culture. Seduction was literally a crime in these societies.
Yes, there were a handful of artists and very wealthy men who got away with it. They get away with statutory today(see Epstein et al), which is the actual equivalent(remember, the concept of a 'teenaged girl' as a box a young woman might fit into is actually very recent- most historical languages had equivalent terms which meant 'unmarried young woman' and they had similar legal rights and protections).
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I highly highly doubt that in centuries past any significant percentage of men lived this sort of playboy life. This strikes me as typical feminist BS where the experience of the average woman is compared to that of men who are extraordinary in terms of fortune and social status.
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What they are missing is both knowledge and responsibility. Current women are not good at evaluating their worth on the dating market.
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This has never been the vast majority of men. You're hyperfocused on the top ten to one percent of men who have the luxury to do this.
Looking back at the past three generations of men on my father's side, not one of them did this, my father included.
The vast majority of men really are invisible to women, huh.
I've spent the past ten years trying to get together a job and a life that can actually support a family. So far it's been an utter failure, for one reason or another.
No sane woman would want to marry me.
I never received any attention from woman in high school.
Funny story my family had over Christmas dinner. My mother was commenting on how she was bragging to her hair dresser about how good her two sons are(myself and my brother), referencing all the things we do for her in terms of managing the household and all the special things we like to do one around the holidays. The hair dresser, in turn, apparently regaled to my mother how worthless her various relatives were regarding such things and how much of a pain they were.
And it couldn't help but occur to me, listening to this, that at no point during this entire conversation these two women apparently had, was there the wherewithal or instinct or desire to go 'Hey, I have/you have these two, single, adult men - I have/you have these single relatives, why don't you/I get them together as a social date and see if anything clicks'.
I'm beginning to wonder just how many generations of women have failed their sons by this point.
So you're happy to be linked with a worthless woman who doesn't manage the household or do anything in regards to family bonds or much of anything at all? Because unless you mean "hairdresser's worthless male relatives" (which is what she was complaining about) and "me and my brother", I don't see this working.
Your mother was boasting of her filial sons. Her hairdresser was talking about how the guys in her family were not like that. If you think that out of that "hey, we both have unattached male relatives, let's get them together and see if anything clicks" is what you want in order to get married to a woman and have kids with her, I don't think it'll work.
If you want to marry a hairdresser or woman of that social class, nothing is stopping you going to a hairdresser's salon and trying to find out if any of the women there are single.
The hairdresser in question was referring to the woman and men in her family.
I bring this up as a point because, presumably, she might very well have single, available family members looking to get married.
At not one point did my mother inquire about this, at no point did the hairdresser in question volunteer.
Your confidence in my social acumen is staggering.
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Quite possibly that happened, your picture was shown; your job and height were stated; and you were rejected without being made aware of it. The dirty little secret is that single women who report difficulty finding relationships are almost uniformly super-picky.
Yeah, I made this point independently. Feminists (in fact most women) tend to engage in the "fallacy of the peak," in which they compare average women to super-elite men.
Hah. You don't know my mother. No, I'm fairly certain this didn't happen in the slightest. I don't even beleive she has a picture of me to show, come to think...
You are quite correct on the rest of it, though.
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I would assume there are many men who would gladly settle for "vagina, not a drug user, has a job" as long as she is merely average in all other aspects as opposed to negative.
No drugs? That's no fun. I'd swap that for "nice to me".
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That's almost where I'm at myself, although I have a handful more red flags now that I've been through enough.
I did a huge dating blitz in like 2021-2022 and I'm now happily married with children after doing a lot of first dates.
Honestly my criteria for 'worth a first date/potentially something' was prettymuch just
Then I was willing to atleast meet the person, though it's shocking how many women couldn't get over those humps
It was shocking me in approximately that 2021-2022 period when I was re-entering the dating market. Now its just a default expectation (which sucks).
My criteria were pretty close to your stated ones. But something I came to realize is that a woman, in the current era, who does not have tattoos, with a low (less than 4) body count, ... they ALSO tend to be anxious/avoidant/flighty. Which explains why they aren't following the crowd/out partying/getting laid in the first place. They can seem ideal and even engaging early on and then disappear on you with little warning. Eventually the fear of commitment overrides the desire for companionship. The other issue I keep slamming into is women that check the boxes... but who are so focused on career/academics/family (even into their mid 20's!) that they genuinely don't have much time to date.
I'm considering a sincere dating blitz this year since literally the only real goal I haven't achieved for myself is finding a decent partner who will stick around.
But the whole thing about going on "a lot of first dates" is its necessarily taking a ton of time that I could be spending on things that actually convert into money or a finished product or actual fulfillment for me, rather than constant low-level psychic damage with the occasional spike of heartbreak.
My real hope is finding a decent 'filter' so those dates are at least with people who are in it with good faith and intentionality. I hate wasting time and money on a process that has a low success rate, my instinct is to search out ways to increase the success rate.
Last year a friend connected me with a single acquaintance of his who checked most of the aforementioned boxes at first blush, made it to three dates, which were all pleasant, then she moved back in with her parents for [reasons]. Fast forward a couple months, she meets a guy she knew from years ago while there, and they enter a relationship. I only learn of this when my friend relays the news. He was apologetic, but I told him it was actually the best dating experience I'd had in 5 years (he's married with kids, not his fault for not knowing the lay of the land).
The part that stings a bit is that this dude is a divorcee with two kids, and she just dove right into his arms. I can't even imagine what he offers over me, other than comfort/familiarity. There's that flightiness.
So looking for a 'fresh' start in the new year, but at a loss as to what channel I can try that I haven't already which would help ensure the women I match with meet that very basic floor of eligibility.
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The marriage rate is down to like 47%. For young adults, even worse.
The relationship formation rate is down globally. Money quote:
"Its the women" is the standard interpretation. Its just usually couched as them being 'victims' of social forces they are helpless to effect.
Are you spending much time around people who are ages 20-29? They're the ones reporting the most problems
The simplest piece of data to support my "50% of men are invisible" is the fact that, SURPRISE, about 60% of young men are single compared to 34% of women. 44% of Gen Z men reported zero, zip, nada romantic experience..
So who, then, are the women dating in this situation?
Stop sending so many women to college. They absorb a ton of debt. They choose majors that don't pay as much. They take longer to pay down their debt, and it causes them a lot of distress. They 'burn' 4 or more years of their fertility for this.
And, of course, they come out the other side with massively inflated standards for a mate. The irony for women is that going to college tends to reduce their appeal as mates (not a given, but they tend to make choices that lead there) while making their expectations for a mate go higher.
Do this by making it harder to get student loans in general, going back to before the 1993 Student Loan Reform Act.
See if that moves the needle.
(And to be clear, yes, a lot fewer men should attend college too, by my estimation)
If even that is too much to stomach, I'd say you're not serious about addressing any of this.
I'm not fighting for this position because I desperately want/need it to be true. I wish it weren't. I'm compelled to defend it because I can't find any single supportable argument that points elsewhere.
Add on, of course, the recent revelations that white males have been systemiatically excluded from many, many opportunities.
All of this would of course combine to produce the large amount of Male Gen Z Angst and anger we're seeing bubble up.
It’s a lottery. The data shows that girl bosses tend to find great mates. Elizabeth Holmes got married because she’s still kind of hot and went to Stanford. And married to a rich kid. It still vastly boost mate value as a signal if you can back up the signal (Steve Jobs wife went to Stanford MBA).
Beneath the high end though and bringing debt to a relationship it’s probably a bad thing. And just getting a nursing degree for a second solid income if needed and being cute is a better plan.
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Still not going to work, because now the "34-37 year old male, tall, in good shape, earning a high income" (1) doesn't want to marry just yet because there's so much out there to achieve both in professional life and in personal life having fun (2) ugh, why tie myself down to some dull 20 year old who can't even earn her own living and will be a leech dependent on me instead of a partner?
You can reduce the number of women going to college pretty substantially without actually getting it below the male rate.
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How does this square with the fact that there's an almost 20 point marriage gap in favor of college educated women? College educated women are worse mates and have higher expectations, but are much more likely to be married? Most of the decline in marriage rates over the last 50 years has been among non-college educated women. Non-college-educated women have seen marriage rates decline from 79% to 52% while college educated women have seen marriage rates decline from 78% to 71%. Empirically, college helps women get married.
That Dataset actually only goes up to the 1990ish birth cohort. Check Page 43 of the PDF
Any shifts that emerged in the past 10-15 years are probably not reflected here.
And the last 10-15 years are when the most drastic shifts have happened.
I haven't found as much reliable data that is more recent, but...
The longer a student is in college — the least likely they are to get married, study says
Study Here
If they find their partner while in college, this is likely true.
Of course, I'd believe that many non-college educated women are just shacking up with guys and not marrying them too (and popping out the occasional kid), whereas I'd guess college-educated women are just single and childless.
Sure. It's asking about whether someone was married by age 45 so it is necessarily limited to people who are age 45 or older (birth year 1980 or earlier).
I'm curious about the precise claim here. For ~40 years between 1985 and the present the fraction of college educated women married by age 45 looks pretty stable around 71% (+/- a couple percent) while the fraction of non-college educated women married by 45 underwent a steady collapse from around 71% to 52%. Is the claim that in 10-20 years, when the current cohort is 45, these numbers will have reversed? There will have been a climb in the fraction of non-college educated women who are married? A decline in the fraction of college educated women who are married? Did going to college become a net-negative for women's marriage prospects just in the last 10-15 years?
The less likely they are to be married in the 25-34 age range. If people are unlikely to get married while in college then being in college means delaying marriage, potentially out of this age window.
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Yeah, actually. Most of my younger coworkers are actively dating and/or getting married.
Maybe I am in a very unusual bubble, but I actually don't think so.
As a practical matter, how do you propose to do this? We don't "send" women to college, they choose to go.
If your solution is "Campaign on social reform that encourages fewer women to go to college and more women to get married young and have children," okay, I don't object to that in principle, but if churches are failing to sell that message, how will you?
If your solution is "Don't let them go to college," well, no, I'm not going to jump on board the "Make women property again" Jimbus.
Okay, I'll buy that. I doubt it will actually reduce the number of women who want to go to college. It might reduce the number of women who go to college for Afro-Queer Anti-Colonialism Studies.
I'm in the 20-29 age cohort and it's a wasteland for a lot of men. When I used to go to church every single guy in the young adult group was either married or completely single (and this ratio was something like 10:1 in favor of single-men). And this was a Catholic Church where people are supposed to getting married early. At work it is similar, although in my family things seem to be better (my sister and all my female cousins have long-term boyfriends who are certainly not chad, although my sister's boyfriend is 6' 4").
I tend to agree with you that many of the put "women back in a box" solutions are pretty unworkable. Although stable, happy marriage might be far preferable on long time horizons, dating an average person as another average person is much less exciting than freedom and independence. I see this in myself with dating: why would I go out to a bar or another coffee date, when reading/exercising/friend activities are so much more exciting and less stressful. It's probably even worse for young women, who are constantly bombarded with attention and opportunities.
I don't find the political speculation to be particularly useful, but perhaps we can glean some personal self-improvement type stuff from all of this. I think both men and women could be better about selecting for traits that actually would matter in a marriage. Stability, kindness, physical fitness, etc., rather than raw sex appeal or charisma. That kind of selection is something that you as an individual can control (and advise your friends about). For men I think this means desexualizing your brain (no more porn and masturbation), and under no circumstances simping. Seeing women as human beings like you not only helps you to evaluate them more accurately, but also makes them more attracted to you. For women, I think I would recommend something similar: stop consuming fantasy romance slop.
We need Everett True to get you bashful young men sorted out 😁
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Well, the way to solve this problem is for society to award social status to people who make the sacrifice of getting and staying married. That's how things work in religious subcultures. Yes, it creates hardship in certain cases, but it works.
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Also society mandating that college degrees include passing tests that include engineering level calculus and physics.
Better still: abolish degrees; keep the tests.
What is the value add of requiring that someone spends 4 years in a building? Whatever it is, it cannot be worth it.
In a sane world, a GED would be worth more than a high school diploma, because you actually have to know something to pass the standardized GED test, whereas you can graduate from some high schools without knowing how to read.
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I think you're in the bubble of "people who are generally social and talk about their personal lives."
Which an increasing number of young folks just... don't.
And its not an issue unique to the U.S.
If they can 'afford' to. And if they can't get student loans as easily, fewer of them will be able to afford to, unless parents pay the way.
I'm really just trying to make adjustments on the margins here. If 10% fewer women end up going to college, and the marriage rate bumps up about 5%, I think that's a sign of improvement.
Look, I keep saying, I'm trying to push for 'moderate' changes now, because the Zoomers are probably not going to be as patient.
If you want to salvage the current 'equality' of the sexes under the law, you have to address this now. If literally any solution that inconveniences or upsets women is a nonstarter then it's not getting solved until we hit an actual crisis point.
Well I think it's pretty clear by now that either (1) some game-changing technology or technologies will make the whole issue moot; or (2) religious subcultures with fertility-promoting norms will simply breed the problem out of existence.
Option (3) would be for secular societies to adopt policies and/or social norms which inconvenience or annoy women, something that seems very unlikely to happen any time soon.
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Yes. But the precondition seems to be true and as South Korea shows, any crisis point is far off.
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