This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What is the woman's responsibility towards low TFR?
Low TFR is the new hot topic. I'll use this post to continue the discussion started by @ffrreerree2 (Only 1 comment, if not an alt, welcome to the Motte.) on his post. Because the last week's thread is about to die off.
Also assumes fuck rate is tied to birth rate
I'll focus on the Iranian video discussed in the previous post. I think it's a good enough approximation of a conservative call to marriage/family building. It does well to highlight the individual failure mode of not having worked towards building a family, obviously "crippling" loneliness, lack of purpose, shitty QOL, yada yada.
That video still bugs me. For one, the right side of the video was entirely redundant. Everyone knows that if you have that wonderful magical trad-wife who other than wearing a hijab at home; gets up in the morning before you without an alarm clock, cooks labor-intensive dishes for not only breakfast but also for your packed lunch, combs your hair for you, and presumably organizes a surprise birthday party for you,
then fucks it's it up by spraying foam all over the cake., life is all gravy. Does the modal (regardless of Nationality) man need to be reminded of that dream? Doesn't the very next video by Taiwan hint at the notion that that very dream itself is 'problematic' because women are not only for the kitchen? I'm from the East and its an extremely common discussion trope/meme among young females that there exists no worse reality than being sentenced to the kitchen after marriage, and there are more than enough heuristics (how good-looking the guy is) to figure out if a potential suitor would be the kind to do that. Men around my parts go to extreme lengths to hide any and all desire for such a thing, some even convincing themselves that, that isn't actually a great deal for them all things considered.Now moving on to the left side. What was particularly wrong about the guy in the video if you look past the "this dude totally sucks" aesthetics? He woke up on time, has an apartment, has a job, has a car, looks the same as his alternate reality married version (despite the pizza coke and takeout), and isn't carrying any obvious grooming defects that a visit to the barbershop can't fix. He also has a pet tortoise. I guess him being rude to the girl selling flowers sealed his fate. Or that he turns his apartment lights off, totally can't fix that by.. turning the lights on.
How does the guy on the left become the guy on the right? The video presents an alternate reality side by side, and it's presupposed that left did something wrong along the way. But he is clearly not happy, I am sure he did not turn down the magical trad wife in the past to further progress his presumble software engineering (casual clothes at the workplace) career. He knows his life kinda sucks. Is the world really suffering from a lack of mediocre-looking software engineering men turning women from marriage? Does not literally 5 minutes on the internet or speaking to a man under the age of 25 reveal to you that it's quite literally the opposite?
So let's imagine an alternative video but this time the female is the protagonist.
On the left we have; Our female protagonist waking up to an alarm. She replies to the 58 notifications on her Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram, she eventually musters up the courage to wake up and makes her way to the shower, brushes her teeth and then proceeds to spend 30 minutes putting on makeup because society demanded so, and because it makes her feel better. Having left her house ready to take on The World, but! only after she got her corporation-made coffee, no she doesn't have the time to make coffee at home. Finally, at work, she gets in her pre-email gossip at the breakroom for 25 minutes talking to her female coworker about the latest episode of that totally amazing new Netflix show. Midway through sending the emails the 'cutest guy at the office who is not particularly attractive' asks her how her weekend was, she tells him about how she went to an escape room and was so scared like it was a horror movie! The guy eventually wipes the sweat off his eyebrows during a strategic bathroom break during the conversation and asks her to go with him to this new escape room that he's heard all about next weekend. She declines the offer despite letting him know how that would be so totally amazing and sounds like a really fun plan. The guy contemplates changing jobs and then wonders did he remember to feed his pet turtle. After a hard day of work, she rushes home and reaches for the Beauty by Earth Makeup Remover - with Organic Aloe Vera & Witch Hazel, Use with Eye Makeup Remover Wipes or Cotton Pads, Gentle Non-Greasy Makeup Remover for Dry, Oily and Sensitive Skin Types(also vegan and cruelty free) makeup remover so she can apply it and then reapply another layer of makeup for her upcoming Tinder date, because society said so. She goes on the date talks about her ex, her cat, her totally crazy coworker who is insane enough to go on 10 tinder dates a month as opposed to the usual 5. After an exciting evening out, the couple to be arrives home and engage in unprotected sex because condoms feel like shit, after some pillow talk she says her goodbyes and makes sure to not forget to take the pill because pullout game only gets you so far. She unwinds by watching that totally amazing show on Netflix with the lights off and goes to bed.
Ofcourse the story above other than being terribly written is an exaggeration. The modal young woman isn't this vapid. She maybe goes on 1 date a month, might entertain the guys offer to go for the escape room, and sometimes reads novels instead of watching Netflix, and only uses a 5$ makeup remover instead of a 23$ one. But it's just a difference in magnitude not kind. Both of them do not entertain the idea of procreating with that guy from the office. Both of them are the Pams waiting for their Jim Halperts. They just can't find a good enough guy! And until you do that for them through whatsoever means, no amount of PSA videos is going to help your cause. Start off by thinking towards aiming the video at the right audience maybe. Maybe.
Can I ask all the men blaming women, the hussies, for not getting married at seventeen and pumping out a baby a year for the next ten years - are you fathers? Any of you? Do you have kids? More than one kid? If not, why not? "I always wanted six kids but I couldn't find a woman willing to have that big a family" or "Don't be dumb, I'm not forty yet, time enough for me to settle down after I build my career and have my fun along the way with as many hot chicks as I can persuade to let me bang them"?
Because I'm fed-up right now of this stream of comments as if women magically are the only ones having babies or not. Oh, all the eighteen year old men just aching to take on adult life as a husband and father, if only those trollops weren't busy painting their faces and working at jobs!
Excuse me if I don't believe that.
Let's turn the solutions that have been presented in previous comments around. Easy one first: no contraception. Men who have sex are going to become fathers, or else they can wait until a woman decides to marry them. And let's make it harder for men to waste their prime fertile years going to college. Get them working good honest blue-collar jobs out of high school, married to their childhood sweetheart, and having babies by the time they're twenty.
Men can wait ten or so years to have a career, they'll easily pick one up when they're thirty-plus and asking an employer to take them on for full-time white collar work for the first time ever. It's much more important that they be around to be the head of the house and raise the kids right. Women can take a year out to have a baby and then go back to work, but it's a full-time job for a father. And since women have it so soft and easy in this world, and it's easier for women to get degrees and white-collar jobs, let Mom be the worker but Dad should be there for his brood because who else is going to teach them the right ways?
Economic incentives for men to marry early, father lots of kids, and postpone further education/career-building will surely change the fertility slump! If it would work for a woman, certainly no man would object to having his freedom curtailed in this way - after all, his duty to society and the future trumps any petty personal ambitions, right?
EDIT: Yes, I am going to put this out there: unless you are a married father of at least three kids, shut your yap about this. You are as much part of the problem as the women. Any guy who is not married (if you're cohabiting, why the fuck aren't you getting married instead of lolling around getting free milk without buying the cow?) and not the father of kids (are you putting it off until "someday later"? "it's too expensive"? "it's not the right time"?) can't have the neck to say "oh why aren't those women getting married and having kids?"
Since @Amadan announced to the whole world that you are a woman, He actually did me a favor by allowing me to craft my response better (You and I are operating at from a massive inferential distance). And my response differs based on gender not because I think women are dumb (despite my frustration fuelled writing). But because there are certain experiences so obvious, so universal to a specific group they needn't be reiterated at all. For young men (like me) nowadays that experience is the difficulty in attracting a woman long term. The satirical story at the end is speaking to that audience of young men, men who I am quite confident know exactly what I am talking about. As a woman, you really do not understand that difficulty.
The tldr intention of the post was to convey that; Men keep on catching all the flak for all the worsening social fabrics. Young women live quite dysfunctional/unhealthy (physically and mentally) lives as well but there is just about no mention of that in any context. Exxagerating exactly how the modal modern young woman's life is ridiculous and antisocial was my attempt to discuss the specifics. Then I shoehorned in what I actually think that women hold they key to the TFR because they hold the key to reproduction, to begin with.
And I am sure you know this. But there is a sex recession. And the reason for that for those on the ground is clear as day. Women's standards have just become ridiculous. I catch a lot of flak for saying this from older/married users here but the modern Instagram/Snapchat/Tinder-injected dating scene is really something they are NOT used to.
So I am getting up on podium and saying; So what if you fix the economy, so what if you fix culture? What are you going to do about the fact that OLD made it such that instead of settling with the guy from college or the office, a good chunk of women think they deserve to marry and build a life with the 99th percentile men they get attention from on tinder (men will fuck anything within reason). The modern young woman thinks being able to bed a man of high status is a reflection of her own high status. This is not true! A man being able to bed a high-status woman is. It doesn't work the other way around, men will fuck anything, women only fuck equal or better. And the young women are okay with this arrangement, because once you go
black. No one will ever tell them otherwise. So what happens? This young woman goes on till shes 35 passing along every guy of equal sexual status.. because they did not match up to Tinder Date #7, well she doesn't match up to Tinder Date #7! The OLD cat is out of the bag and there is honestly no way to put it back in.I will just watch the decline and maximize my net worth in the meanwhile.
I am both older and was dating on Tinder until 2 years ago (until I met my current girlfriend there). My experience of being a mid-fifties, pudgey, 5,11 (not even over the magical 6 foot barrier!) partially retired academic is that I was able to attract much younger, more attractive women than I would expect. Sure my British accent helps with dating in the US but I will give you an anecdote that was repeated across a large spectrum of the women I dated in that time.
Most were between 25 and 40, professional, smart and often making more money than I do. I'll call one Sandra. She was 30, a computer programmer earning 6 figures, graduated college at 18 and smart, beautiful and accomplished. On our third date I made her breakfast in the morning, and she burst into tears. It emerged that no man had EVER cooked for her. She had even lived with a serious boyfriend between 24 and 29 and he never once cooked, cleaned or did laundry. The fact I had a decorated place with a bed frame and not just a mattress on the floor was a marvel to her. The fact I could cook a few dishes (and I am far from the worlds greatest cook) was astonishing. That I could actually run my own life. I broke up with her because there were some compatibility issues, but she would be a terrific catch.
The 27 yo journalist from New York I dated had similar stories to tell. As did the 33 yo doctor and the 31 yo nurse. Their experience is that what they call high-value men are very rare. But to me what they were even looking for in high-value men is the bare minimum. So the proposition that emerges is that while women's standards may have increased, it seems equally possible that the standard of men has in fact decreased. They were clearly willing to date men who made less than they did, because I made less than virtually all of them. They were also willing to date less accomplished men from a life skills point of view because that is what they had been doing!
If you can cook at least a few basic dishes, make your home look like something livable, dress and groom yourself to a decent standard (including picking out a cologne/scent to smell good, which is in my experience really important) then you are ahead of a lot of men 25-35 in North East of the United States at least as far as I can tell. I'm a chubby, hairy man in my 50's who works part time and otherwise lives off my pension. I should not be able to compete with well put together 25-35yo men in the prime of their life for women who are significantly more attractive than I am. But there appear to be very few of those to compete with.
I courted my first wife when I was 19, 35 or so years ago, and her standards were high. Here and now, if anything women's standards on average appear to be lower as far as I can tell. Now it is quite possibly also true that there are fewer high value women as well, but it's fairly easy to filter for those you want. And at least if you work or live in a city, there are literally thousands to pick from.
Yes she started settling at 30. Leaving her what, the opportunity to have maybe 3 (healthy) kids at best if he's lucky?
Some women get married at 18. She graduated early but too bad she was the wrong sex for that to matter for her romantic prospects. She had been rejecting marriage for over 12 years!
Who believes that? If he's serious he puts a ring on it within a year. Smart and beautiful woman gets strung along for 5 years. Many such cases! Sad! That must be the one lesson she skipped by spending so much effort on government school.
I know women in the same age range / cohort as these women who are currently married with children and cohabited with their future husbands for years, many of them for more than five years. One of them has been together with the same man for 22 years, and their first child is only 4 years old. Another one cohabited with her man for around 7 years before they had their first child. And so on. So this approach does actually work. (And no, expecting men to put a ring on it within a year is usually not a viable approach.) I’m not saying this is normal, or should be normal, because it takes abnormal levels of self-control, foresight and low time preference on both sides, but not only can it work, but I believe this is unfortunately the only viable approach in the current mating market for people who want to have a family.
However, one crucial aspect is that none of these women paired up with men who “never once cooked, cleaned or did laundry”, or displayed characteristics similar to these – instead, their partners gave obvious signals of willing to maintain a long-term relationship (which is why I find it strange that you left the second half of that sentence out when replying to it). Then again, noticing such signals and then attracting such men into relationships is something the average woman has been capable of doing for millions of years, so I’m sure it’s not that difficult. So yes, I agree that the smart and beautiful woman you mentioned was indeed foolishly strung along for 5 years.
Well being a functional adult seems like a prerequisite to get married since the point of marriage is to be in charge of children.
While it's possible to never have had to cook, 'learning how to prepare food' is as simple as watching a few youtube videos.
A woman with an aggressive approach to marriage should do just that (and not wait to be in her late 20s to get aggressive either).
For the 2015 woman I recommend joining alt-right circles. For the 2023 woman there's America First.
A woman that would go out of her way to find a man that is interested in cooking is actually a red flag in my point of view.
That means that she is either not too motivated to cook because she doesn't like it, she doesn't like the idea of pleasing her husband and family, is unconfident in her (poor) cooking skills...
Or that she expects her husband to shoulder a large share of cooking duty because her family is so non-traditional that she cannot expect any female relative to ever help when she is heavily pregnant, postpartum or sick.
That latter one is incredibly common and you should consider it carefully with the rest of that potential wife if you ever want a large family.
Unless you already have an incredibly supportive family which will provide more than enough help, but then why would you have any issue getting married, what did you do with that highschool sweetheart arranged by your parents before your birth?
What proper women should be looking for imo is a man that is capable of being a single income earner and provide moral guidance to the family.
Having a healthy supportive family is also very important but again, people like that get off the market really quickly.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link