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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29374 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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She's seriously disappointed with the type of guys she has available to her.

If she had planned to start looking seriously for the love of her life in her 30s and expects that she'll have the same success, as measured by the "quality" of the man, as the women who make this their top priority from the time they're 19, she's in for a bad time. The really good ones--both men and women--are locked down early, as you've surmised. By prioritizing career, she's made a tradeoff, whether she realizes it now or not. There is no "having it all".

Of course, there's always black swan events. If, against all odds, she finds her doting 6'4" doctor with the chiseled abs and jaw, she'll be on reddit's r/askwomenover30 in a few years giving really bad advice to people who will then be in the situation she's in now.

the women who make this their top priority from the time they're 19

I'm pretty confident that no such women exist anywhere. Either they don’t make this a priority because it doesn’t even occur to them and would find it icky were it to be suggested to them, or their family make it a top priority for her with her having little choice in the matter because she lives in a patriarchal culture. What does happen in reality is that some women pair up in high school or college and remain committed, usually cohabiting for long years before marrying and having children. But it’s a matter of convenience, not personal strategy. If this does not happen, her chances of mating successfully will start quickly diminishing in the current social reality.

It does need to be said- focusing on becoming a normie housewife(after all, you basically cannot be a career oriented woman without college first, which is going to last longer than that) starting at 19, or in the right circles perhaps 16 or 17, has fairly good odds of working out.

But this woman does not want that. They want a ‘high value’(they and I may disagree on the definition/relative importance of terms here) man. That 6’4 doctor is not going to marry a woman without a college degree. If she’d focused on this at 23(I don’t know how she would do this, but assuming she did) rather than on career advancement, sûre, she’d have had better odds of landing the high-powered husband. But wealthy men do not marry waitresses.

That 6’4 doctor is not going to marry a woman without a college degree.

Male doctors mostly marry other doctors and other healthcare professionals, probably for reasons of availability. I'd be surprised if they cared whether their partners have a certificate, a 2 year degree, or a 4-year degree. (less surprised if they had some preference for or against other doctors)

Doctors are normally from middle-class, relatively affluent suburban families, I imagine. In these circles assortative mating has been the norm for decades. For such a doctor to marry a nurse, for example, someone who does not and will not have a college degree and is of a lower social status than him, is not considered socially accepted behavior. It’s suspicious, sleazy toxic male behavior, and his family and friends will not approve of it. Most middle-class people have no stomach for social ostracism.

Please note that I'm referring to strictly marriages only.

Medicine's particularly tricky to get with normies due to a combination of relocating a lot during peak years and absolutely brutal hours. Most top tier earning/educational professions don't have the same risk of being banished to the middle of nowhere for 3 years in order to get residency or specialization requirements out of the way.

But if you are a doctor, no matter where you go you are going to surrounded and outnumbered by nurses, most of whom are female, the younger ones in their early 20s; it's the ultimate target rich environment. Combine with the high status and high pay of being a doctor and I'd call it easy mode.

Target rich environment indeed, for flings, hookups, short-term relationships and plate-spinning. Not for marriage. See my reply above to The_Nybbler in the same chain.

On the flip side, medicine is unusually legible to marriage-minded women who are into that kind of thing as a high-potential career track. There is a reason why <culture X> mother jokes involve the daughter marrying a doctor.

You could probably use "What fraction of lower-middle class women want to be a doctor's wife?" as a measure of family-orientation across ethnic groups.

I know full-time deranged amateur ladies of the night who'll still brag endlessly if the fortnight's beau happens to be a doctor

At least to me, it would code 'not going to be around the house much, will have constant life-or-death calls on his/her time that will take precedence over you, likely nice but permanently stressed'. Rather a double-edged sword.

Very much agreed - lore when I was a teenager considering careers was that doctors had some of the highest divorce rates as a result. (No idea if this was or is correct or not)

But the same is true of any other high-earning upper-middle-class career, apart from the life-or-death aspect. The thing that is different about doctors that makes marrying a doctor a meme is their visibility. I suspect marrying a doctor really is the easiest route for a lower-middle-class woman to enter the upper-middle-class.

How many doctors marry CNA’s? I’d imagine ~all of healthcare working male doctor spouses are doctors or RN’s, near the top of the hospital hierarchy, not the legion of phlebotomists and nursing assistants below them.

There is still a very strong correlation between woman’s education and her husband’s income.

From what I can tell these days most male doctors come into med school already attached, meet another doctor in school, or end up getting scooped randomly on the apps (if they don't suck) or flounder on the apps (if they do suck).

People avoid the work drama of the past because of woke stuff, although the mid to late career physicians still get up to that sometimes.

Female doctors seem to hold out for someone on the apps of ultra high quality and succeed or fail, with some going for much lower social class/success boy toys.

wealthy men do not marry waitresses.

Well, not the first time, anyway.

Not the second time, either.

The typical trophy second wife is either a PR girl or some kind of art ho (like Lauren Sanchez Bezos)

Well the examples given several times were doctors. There are degrees of wealth, obviously. If we're talking about billionaires, we're far from my area of knowledge.

I was thinking actual rich people, not just the upper-middle-class. Not necessarily billionaires, but biglaw partners, VP-level corporate executives, bank MDs. Also prominent politicians, who have a similar level of status as the above even if they only have upper-middle-class incomes.

I don't have any visibility into what kind of second wife a multi-millionaire small business owner in the sticks would go for.

FWIW, the divorced and remarried doctors in my social circle all remarried nurses.

Agree on all points. I mentioned in another reply that in addition to her real monday-friday job, she is also a qualified physio and is still working at a hospital on sundays. I'm guessing she has half a chance with a doctor who comes out of a bad break up or something.

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