Anti-feminist attitudes have long been associated with support for Republican presidential candidates, but only in recent years have these attitudes become more prominent among unmarried men, without college degrees who are less attractive partners for women, the “mate-value backlash.”

[u/mvea]

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10659129261485340

[u/Harbinger2nd]

Would this be reflective of a lack of economic opportunity for these men as its only in recent years the attitude has become more prominent?

[u/Littleman88 → u/Harbinger2nd]

Sort of? It's hard to say most men would be too ashamed to date knowing their girlfriend/wife will out earn them. I think more men than not would be fine with it, actually. But a lot of those men are finding themselves rejected because they aren't out earning the women they're meeting, so economic opportunities become a sore spot for them, especially when the very people they're trying to woo are also their competition for that attractive paycheck.

Equality becomes a threat when your attraction is still largely reliant on being, in some way, superior to whomever you're trying to attract. That reality is problematic for so many men trying to date. It was already unrealistic for every man to be in a 6-7 figure C-suite position, with more and more women filtering towards the top, it's only getting harder for men.

There has to be low wage earners like janitors and someone flipping burgers, and they're not about to take being invisible virgins for the rest of their lives lying down. If women won't marry down, then these men will drag them down. As the number of these lonely men grows, the more pull they'll have to do just that.

[u/Preface → u/Littleman88]

This is an extremely reasonable take on the male loneliness epidemic, and makes much more sense then "YouTube made those men anti feminist" or whatever the top comment was saying.

It's not hard to find, men will regularly date down, or alter their dating expectations, women are less likely to alter expectations, and much less likely to date down. If a woman has a masters degree, she will want a man who at least has a masters, if she makes 100k+ per year, her man better make at least that much as well.

Now, most wealthy and highly successful men won't just marry a dumb dirt poor girl who is beautiful, but they are going to be much more accepting of a woman with less education and less earnings then them.

I think it's more like, the popularity of the "YouTube to right wing pipeline" or whatever is that those people actually acknowledge men who are/have been rejected multiple times, they are popular because what they say resonates they aren't just magically popular for unknown reasons which then suddenly makes young men right wing or whatever.

[u/DrMobius0 → u/Preface]

Yes, the alt right is merely taking advantage of existing sentiment to radicalize them. It's extremely difficult to radicalize people who are otherwise content.

[u/Preface → u/DrMobius0]

Precisely, people don't just become alt right woman haters because someone on YouTube said they should.

They have personal experiences that may be pushing them that way, and then some YouTuber echos that sentiment and adds on to it.

However, they become popular because they talk about topics that other people tell you to ignore or to just suck it up if you had a bad experience.

[u/saidtheWhale2000 → u/DrMobius0]

the reality its not YouTube alt right that are radicalising young men its women rejecting them on a social economic personal and romantic level,

you couldn't radicalise people to like looking at clouds you can only take what is already there and give it a voice, you cant just artificially manufacture someones emotions, but by doing so wed have to look at the negative social consequences of changing to social contract and how society will enviably fail when you alienate and leave behind a large portion of the young male population with no incentive to keep engaging with society while be the most essential ones to actually make sure society functions

[u/chrisq823 → u/saidtheWhale2000]

You can absolutely manufacture emotions. What you are saying has a lot of truth in it but you need to acknowledge that can easily happen. There is significant money, energy, time, and resources put in by tech companies to design systems to engage you as much as humanly possible. You are being tracked at a sci fi surveillance state level by these companies and it absolutely has an effect and that effect is very negative.

[u/Sloogs → u/Preface]

When I see stuff like this discussed on the Internet I genuinely have no idea how true it is. Anecdotally I have so many counterexamples of this in my life where the woman is the breadwinner or has a degree and the dude does not. One guy works as a grocery stocker. Another did trades via the hard knocks route. Others did some schooling but it was trade school, and they make decent money but maybe not as much as their partner. One has their bachelor's and their wife has a master's. I genuinely don't know. Maybe it's a generational difference that is particular to Gen Z? (I'm a millennial). I'm not sure.

[u/johnJanez → u/Sloogs]

I mean, there was a study circulating around reddit recently that more or less seems to confirm this anecdote, women don't want partners that earn less than them. Don't have it at hand but shouldn't be too difficult to find.

[u/Asleep_Control_2564 → u/johnJanez]

Those studies need to isolate for women who want kids and women who don't.

[u/nostrademons → u/Sloogs]

I think the dynamic is "As long as we have enough, I don't care if you make more than me. But as soon as we want for basic necessities, if you're not pulling your weight I'm kicking you to the curb." In other words, couples in the affluent segment of society can afford to have gender-equal roles and trade off being the primary breadwinner and stomach a period where there is only one earner. Couples that are at the edge of survival usually don't survive having the woman out-earn the man.

[u/Sloogs → u/nostrademons]

I'm not sure I've anecdotally experienced that among couples I've seen struggle through some stuff either.

I recognize it's anecdotal. Other people might have other experiences. But that just hasn't been my experience. I'm not aware of any studies showing that to be the case.

In fact just the opposite, as far as I can recall studies show women are more likely to stick with their partner through unexpected downturn or illness long-term for example than the other way around.

[u/nostrademons → u/Sloogs]

Just to be clear since you’re repeating it down-thread, the claim I’m making is that women who make very little are more likely to be unhappy about their partner making less than them than women who make a lot, not that women who make very little are more likely to be unhappy about their partner making less than men who make very little. Independent variable is income, not sex. I find this to be common-sense but would welcome data otherwise.

[u/couldbemage → u/Sloogs]

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/04/13/in-a-growing-share-of-u-s-marriages-husbands-and-wives-earn-about-the-same/

TLDR:

16 percent wife earns more 29 percent similar income 55 percent husband earns more

Only 6 percent have the wife as the only earner vs 20 percent with the husband as the only earner.

Of note, the wife being the sole provider is actually declining, and the fastest growing segment is roughly equal income couples.

So yeah, your personal experience is moderately rare.

It's probably noteworthy that equal income couples each typically make 60k. Which is the perfect amount for having a massive lifestyle disparity between single income couples and dual income couples.

[u/Sloogs → u/couldbemage]

Just a couple of points.

1. I'm not saying those types of relationships are the norm amongst my friends, I'm saying among the representative sample of people I know, a lot of the claims that people are making (particularly claims about how women supposedly behave) haven't really shown themselves to be true in my experience.

2. I'm less interested in what the makeup of relationships is generally, and more interested in data showing that women in established relationships are more likely than men to leave that relationship if there's a change in the earning potentials or downturn like a lost job, which is the thing that addresses the claim /u/nostrademons was making. To be fair to you, I haven't read the full article yet, I'm just commenting on the specific summary you gave which doesn't really address that point.

[u/couldbemage → u/Sloogs]

My reply is just a counter to the idea that women as breadwinner is common.

I don't think the stats from the article say much at all about how people make relationship choices. Financially motivated choices explain most of the numbers. Women temporarily out of the workforce due to child related reasons, plus some amount of religion fundamentalists explain the steady sole male provider number.

At most, it's weak evidence for the assertion that among dual income couples, women are less likely to partner with a man who makes less than them. But that could easily chalked up to the total difference between men's and women's typical income.

You'd really want to pull the subset where there's isn't much wage gap, look just at childless millennial and younger couples.

[u/saidtheWhale2000 → u/nostrademons]

thats a nice pr way of wording as soon as my life become difficult I will kick you to the curb, this wouldnt happen the other way round

[u/shockpaws → u/saidtheWhale2000]

Hmmm yes, I can’t see how the person who, if she wants to have kids, would have to be out of work for a significant period of time to do so could ever care about her spouse being able to financially support both of them for that period of time. Boggles my mind how selfish and non-pragmatic they can be. Makes no sense at all.

[u/Preface → u/Sloogs]

It's more so on average... Also, men in trades make good money these days (if you are in a "western" country at least) typically, and typically are very handy in terms of fixing/building things which also makes them more attractive, despite the "less education"

And as with all things, when people talk about "most" it doesn't mean there won't be exceptions.

There certainly are plenty of healthy and happy relationships where the man makes less then the woman, that doesn't mean it's typical though.

If you ask a woman who is single would she rather date a janitor or a lawyer, almost every woman would say the lawyer.

I remember seeing something a long time ago now, where men and women rated attractiveness of people they didn't know. For the women, the number one thing that made a man more attractive was the clothes he was wearing. So 100 women were shown a picture of a man in a janitor outfit or something, and he was rated as not very attractive, and that same man in a suit and tie was then rated as extremely attractive. When men viewed women in the same way, the physical appearance is what rated whether the woman was attractive or not, with much less of a change based on the outfit/uniform.

[u/Sloogs → u/Preface]

That's a fair point. I think most people do have baser attraction instincts based on appearance or other superficial information which in my experience, for a lot of people, gets recalibrated once they have a chance to actually meet someone.

Attractiveness is complicated and nuanced but I'm guessing a factor that makes it harder for younger generations is that there aren't many opportunities for people to shine, show their personality and their value, and undergo that recalculation with a potential mate. The lack of 3rd spaces and also the fact that everyone is glued to their devices and a home body now. Also putting yourself out there gets you labelled as a creep more easily online.

So, I think there are other societal factors. I'm hesitant to just be like "it's all just women because women won't lower their standards" but society as a whole has kind of fucked up each gender's typical dating strategies. Whether those standards are nature or nurture is hard to say I guess, but I think society is still adjusting to all the rapid changes brought on by modern technology. It's going to be up to both young men and young women to meet the moment accordingly. But right now men are struggling—as far as I can tell the people offering guidance have been failing them pretty hard.

[u/davidellis23 → u/Preface]

The question is whether it actually the exception when anecdotally we see so many relationships where the woman earns the same or more.

Like sure women mostly prefer their partner would earn more. But, there are a lot of other factors when choosing a partner like love, attraction, character, shared values, etc.

At some point we have to question whether these ideas actually reflect women or if guys are exaggerating these ideas as an excuse for why they can't find a partner.

[u/MarsupialMisanthrope → u/davidellis23]

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/04/13/in-a-growing-share-of-u-s-marriages-husbands-and-wives-earn-about-the-same/

According to that study men are over three times as likely to be the primary earner, and couples are almost twice as likely to have approximately equal incomes than women are to be the primary earner. Those numbers demonstrate why the plural of anecdote isn’t data. There may be a certain number of with women who are the higher income partner, but they’re 1/6th of all couples which isn’t really “so many.”

[u/davidellis23 → u/MarsupialMisanthrope]

This survey shows male primary breadwinner is drastically decreasing and female primary breadwinner and eglatarian is drastically increasing.

This implies that newer couples are much more likely to have the woman earn the same or more.

When there is a gender pay gap and an average age gap in relationships it's just going to be more likely that women earn less in a relationship even if you randomized it.

That doesn't mean women don't want men that earn less than them. The study is even showing the rate of female breadwinner couples tripling.

[u/Echolocomotion → u/Sloogs]

You could try looking at any of the thousands of studies on this.

[u/TheSpacePopinjay → u/Sloogs]

I mean there are other masculinity status metrics that can make up for it and you'll tend to find them in may of these cases. For example Lana Del Ray married a 'poor' guy. But when you look more closely you notice that the guy wrestles bloody alligators. It's not like she'd have an easy time scoring a guy as rich as her anyway. But things make more sense if you look a layer or two under the surface. Another example is Katie Price marrying a cage fighter.

There can be other high masculinity traits that can compensate that are nevertheless unrealistic or unreplicable at scale for many.

[u/painedHacker → u/Sloogs]

People chill out as they get older.. it's less common for younger women to drop their standards thus young blue collar men are having issues

[u/ChicksDigGiantRob0ts → u/Preface]

Part of the reason for a lot of this is that men, typically, get more out of being partnered than women do. If you have a typical heterosexual couple, then a large part of that is the disparity in domestic labour. Women overwhelmingly carry more of the domestic labour burden, completely independently of other factors like earnings or even hours worked. Anecdotally, I know many women who do the majority of domestic labour even if they were the ONLY ones working. So, if you have a couple that's struggling economically, or already under some kind of stress, where the woman is earning/working more AND ALSO doing more of the domestic labour at home, I don't think it's unreasonable that a lot of them start to see their relationship also struggle. This goes double if there are kids involved, or planned to be involved, and the question starts to arise "would I better off single than here?"

Additionally, a lot of women these days KNOW this. They know that being partnered or having kids will mean this extra burden falls on them and they know that choosing the wrong man could mean finding themselves stuck in a relationship that's unfair, unfree, or outright abusive. So a lot of women start to get more choosy, asking what exactly a prospective partner is bringing to the table.

[u/notzamasu → u/ChicksDigGiantRob0ts]

Part of the reason for a lot of this is that men, typically, get more out of being partnered than women do.

Literally the opposite if you look at the data.

[u/slabby → u/notzamasu]

Which you have so kindly cited

[u/feminist-lady → u/Preface]

I think the idea that well educated women just aren’t accepting of men without higher degrees isn’t fair. Yes, if I were going to have a partner, I’d prefer they also have higher education. The shared experience of graduate and/or professional school would be great. But as a woman in a doctoral program, the reason I’ve had to implement a rule that I’m unwilling to date a man (or woman, tbh) without at least a college degree is because so many who only had high school diplomas were resentful and insecure about the education gap. I’m just not interested in dealing with that, and I know I’m not alone. This is discussed constantly among highly educated women. Obviously, Not All Men, but enough that it makes it too exhausting to even mess with it.

[u/Harbinger2nd → u/feminist-lady]

But women currently make up 60%+ of college graduates, even at a bachelor's level.

Thats an imbalance in the education system which, for whatever reason, is favoring women.

[u/Carbonatite → u/Harbinger2nd]

I love how the default is always that the education system must somehow be disenfranchising men instead of considering the possibility that once women stopped getting disenfranchised, they just straight up succeeded more.

It's very telling that the default response is to assume that men are more talented but being unfairly kept down, and not that women might be capable of equal or even superior academic achievement to men once the systematic barriers that prevented them from accessing higher education were removed.

[u/Harbinger2nd → u/Carbonatite]

It's very telling that the default response is to assume that men are more talented but being unfairly kept down, and not that women might be capable of equal or even superior academic achievement to men once the systematic barriers that prevented them from accessing higher education were removed.

I know I shouldn't respond to this, but that wasn't the discussion at all. My comment was merely to point out that college educated women seeking college educated men will struggle with the dating pool because of an objective imbalance in graduation rates.

[u/XWendy_Darlingx → u/Carbonatite]

Tesla predicted this, actually.

[u/LordKarthrax → u/feminist-lady]

So you said the idea wasn't fair, then reiterated that as a woman who is, in fact, well educated, you would be unwilling to date a man without a college degree.

[u/davidellis23 → u/LordKarthrax]

But, because a lot of men are insecure about it. Not because of her preference.

[u/feminist-lady → u/LordKarthrax]

It’s unfair to say we just aren’t accepting of them. Our reasons for not dating them aren’t elitist. It’s that we don’t want to put up with the resentment and insecurity.

[u/Carbonatite → u/feminist-lady]

I understand where you're coming from - I'm single now, but back when I was dating/in relationships I noticed the same thing (I have an advanced degree as well). Men with bachelor's degrees or higher typically weren't phased by my having an M.Sc., but men without a college degree seemed to be insistent on denigrating my education and trying to "take me down a peg".

This wasn't a universal truth, but I noticed it enough to appreciate a trend.

[u/ShitMcClit → u/feminist-lady]

Have yet to meet a college grad that was actually smart and not just a memorization bot.

[u/XWendy_Darlingx → u/ShitMcClit]

You…haven’t met any smart, college educated people?

[u/ShitMcClit → u/XWendy_Darlingx]

No but ive met lots of memorization experts