Harping on people to get married from up in the ivory tower fails to engage with reality of life in the dating trenches.
Or women could just lower their standards if they don’t think anyone is good enough for them. That’s basically what men have been told for ages, that women don’t need to go about changing themselves to meet the standards of men. Surely the same operates in reverse, no? If women don’t like their prospects, they can either lower their bar or stay single since men don’t need to change themselves to please women?
The bar is already on the floor yet some men limbo below that.
And there are women who still choose those men.
I mean, the point of the article is the women who are struggling to find suitable partners. The attitude that woman should just lower their standards (and yet again just accept higher workloads and lower efforts from their partners) is pretty antifeminist. The problem here isn’t that they have unattainable standards, it’s that a lot of men aren’t putting in effort to meet those basic standards, for whatever reason.
The problem here isn’t that they have unattainable standards, it’s that a lot of men aren’t putting in effort to meet those basic standards, for whatever reason.
Are men obligated to meet those standards if they have no interest in doing so? Men don’t just exist for the sake of giving women someone to date, after all. And while the article was (I hesitate to say intentionally) vague about specifics, one thing it mentioned multiple times was holding a college degree. It’s hardly what I’d call “basic standards”, considering it takes a huge amount of time, and a fair deal of money to achieve. Of all the men I’ve talked with, myself included, that “standard” doesn’t seem to be prevalent, with the closest thing being “I guess it would be cool”.
At what point does the principle of “if everywhere you go smells like shit” start applying to these women who date but seem to never find a man that meet their standards? It only seems reasonable if nobody meets the standards, that the standards may be a major part of the issue.
And I don’t mean to say that women should just settle for men they don’t like, but “just stay single” is always an option, one men are told repeatedly whenever they struggle with relationships.
You have some good points I hadn’t considered before, so thank you for that. It’s definitely something I’ll have to think about more. It’s also worth mentioning that the difference between women who couldn’t find a suitable male partner vs men who couldn’t find a suitable female partner also really isn’t very much - “nearly half” vs “one third”, which was something I also wasn’t really considering when I made my comments. Ultimately it seems like a complicated issue that isn’t going to be fixed with one simple solution
Ultimately it seems like a complicated issue that isn’t going to be fixed with one simple solution
Now this I agree with wholeheartedly. My primary issue with the article is that it takes a grievance mindset rather than a problem solving one. It just reads like the women’s equivalent of some incel rant, in the sense that it externalizes the issue such that it’s always someone else’s responsibility to do something about, which doesn’t help solve anything.
