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I think the old concept of masculinity is less benevolent than you're construing it. If women are dependent on men to provide the necessities of life and physical protection then men hold substantial power over women. Without doing a massive cross cultural study I think it stands to reason that the physically stronger member of the relationship who provides the calories/income gets their preferences catered to more than the weaker member who in a pre-industrial world would be pregnant and physically dependent on their partner for prolonged periods of time. Cultural norms surrounding relationships evolved over centuries where men had substantially more power than women.
What's happened recently is that first industrialization and now the shift towards a service sector economy has largely equalized economic power. Guns and the modern state reduce the value of a husband's physical protection, and the gender wage gap is pretty minimal once you control for career choices. Feminism's defection from the old marriage bargain is only possible because the old marriage bargain was produced by a difference in economic power that no longer exists.
My read on this is that the masculinity influencers are pushing for a return to the old bargain under an individualist framework. Go out and make so much money and become so physically powerful that there will be something approximating the pre-industrial power differential and you can get a young wife who caters to your preferences. Emba is basically saying that men need to accept less. Derive meaning from providing for a family but without the power and deference your grandfather received.
Yeah and she can pound dirt. And may god help any man who falls for this bullshit.
If you want to marry an educated woman with ~92% of your income potential and expect them to forgoe most of that income by raising your kids you have to accept worse terms than your grandfather did when he married someone with 60% of his income potential.
Then why do men struggle to find women who want to be homemakers?
My answer is people are status seeking and prefer to marry within their class. Middle and upper class women have unprecedented career opportunities in a society where status comes from career rather than family. The absolute standard of living for home makers has never been higher but the opportunity cost of motherhood is also at an all time high. Lower class women don't face the same opportunity costs but upper and middle class men don't want to marry lower class women and deindustrialization destroyed the ability of lower class men to support a family.
Why are they having so many kids then?
I'll rephrase this. Deindustrialization destroyed the ability of middle-class men to set their children up for an equivalent QOL.
Poor individuals can easily raise poor kids, who will go on to be poor adults. Middle class parents are struggling to raise kids in a manner that allows their children to end up middle class.
I am not at all convinced that this is the case. College remains a good deal even if you take out loans.
And more to the point, if you live with your parents, go to community college, and commute to local state school #57 afterwards, college leaves only a very manageable loan from undergrad. For most career tracks requiring only undergrad, a fancier and more prestigious diploma doesn’t help much. I think the rephrase is ‘many parents struggle to subsidize their children’s middle class expected lifestyle while also setting them up for middle class prospects’.
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