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Very fair summary and counter. I will not relitigate anything but this:
It has of course recently been discussed (at long last) just how hard the deck was stacked against young men over the last 15 years.
https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/
Motte Discussion Here
So I simply point out that the things guys are supposed to achieve to make THEM seem marriageable are dangled further out of reach of many of them based on nothing but their gender and color of their skin. They are not imposing these restrictions on themselves.
Whereas, as I point out on occasion, literally every change in gender-based policy in the U.S. for the past 50 years has been in favor of women. It has put more of them in education, the workplace, and granted them outsized political power. (this also has NOT made them any happier).
So these men are expected to work harder than ever just to overcome the systemic bias, with the reward of pulling from a pool of women who are less appealing than ever, whilst the entire legal/economic edifice of their country is trying to slow them down.
So I think it is absolutely hard for an individual man to tilt the market in his favor unless he he lucked out in rolling his stats to have high charisma, rich parents, and good genes for height/aesthetics.
"Get your life together" is one hell of a lift for, I'd say, 60% of young men, especially because it'll take like 5+ years of solid work to hit the point where they'd be noticeable as a potential partner, and even then its not a guarantee.
And this shows up in the fact that many men just opt out of dating rather than accept constant psychological damage they're powerless to change.
A lot of that article was for a relatively thin slice of upper middle class men looking to make it in creative professions. So yes, if you were a straight while male who wanted to be a literature professor or TV writer over the last decade it was very unfair toward you. I don’t know that the average American, especially blue collar, saw the same pressure.
I think there's a (relatively thin) slice of Blue Collar skilled professional who has made out extremely well due to a relative dearth of competition for a smorgasbord of work in the trades. Lot of dudes getting rich off working in oil fields or, more recently, Data Center construction.
But... we can't ignore the immigration surge exerting pressure on e.g. construction work, trucking, unskilled trades.
So different pressures... but still impact that would fall primarily on males. And still arguably coming from the same source (political favortism for groups other than white males).
Anyhow, they're still struggling on the partnership front.
https://wng.org/roundups/study-shows-working-class-men-arent-getting-married-1749503094
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