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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7862 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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As someone who would describe themselves as broadly anti-manosphere I think the problem is these debates are generally conducted at such a high level of generality as to be useless. They imagine "society", "men", and "women" as undifferentiated masses with uniform preferences in ways that don't really reflect reality.

Men & Women are judged and valued by society differently. Men are valued based on their ability to climb up social hierarchy to obtain status. Women's value is more reflected by their attractiveness, and reproductive capabilities. Masculinity (attempts) to provide useful guidelines and structure to achieve this end. Women simply do not exist in the same space, so their variation of being a role model wouldn't be a good representation of the male position. It would be a kin to a white man trying to be a role model for black boys - the critical social context is not there.

When you talk about "society" valuing people differently, what does that mean on the level of the individual? I am pretty confident my status in my TTRPG friend group and my status in my World of Warcraft guild and my status at work all depend on pretty different factors. Which one of those is "society"? All of them? None of them? Similarly, my wife sometimes goes down to the local bar to play Bingo and is part of a local beekeeper's group. Is it your assertion that her status in those groups is (primarily? substantially?) based on her attractiveness and fertility? Are those not "society"?

Women don't grow up thinking about how to be woman, because much of what defines femininity is there by default. You are simply born a sexy girl - you simply gestate a fetus - and then give birth to it. There is little to no skill barrier required in comparison.

I'll echo others that this is surely true for some women but, almost definitionally, cannot be true for most women. It can't be the case that most women are just born into, say, the top quartile of attractiveness! Some further fraction will have issues that impact their fertility as well.

The problem with "being yourself" as so often espoused by liberal types is that, it provides 0 road map to achieving the traits that women (and people in general) value in men.

The point with the "be yourself" advice is that there is substantial variation in what people value and it is better to develop a relationship or friend group with people who value you when you are the way you want to be instead of forming a relationship or friend group where you have to force yourself to be some way you're not. To take a personal example: I'm not particularly good at or interested in sports. Could I force myself to practice and get better and learn more for the purpose of fitting in with a friend group who was really into sports? Probably. But better for me to find a different friend group who enjoys the same things I do (video games, anime, ttrpgs, etc). Similarly I could probably force myself to suppress my interests for the purpose of attracting a woman who found those interests off-putting. But why would I want to do that instead of finding a wife who shared those interests? Speaking from some observational experience with my brother and a friend having to suppress your interests that way sucks!

The point with the "be yourself" advice is that there is substantial variation in what people value

Perhaps, but there is also substantial overlap. Most people value someone if they are good looking for example, its just something that happens in the subconscious.

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