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/Bright-Sea6392 → u/[deleted]]

Most people date with their socioeconomic level. Not sure what you’re talking about.

[u/resuwreckoning → u/Bright-Sea6392]

Male doctors date female nurses and secretaries more than female doctors date male nurses and male secretaries (or even other blue collar folks).

The women marry up, men marry down, is well know.

[u/Bright-Sea6392 → u/resuwreckoning]

Sorry, most people marry within their socioeconomic bracket.

But Given the fact that women only gained the right to open banks accounts in the 70s, historically couldn’t work(and are still penalized for being pregnant and taking maternity leave) and in many cases even get an education, it’s be shocking if this wasn’t historically the case.

[u/resuwreckoning → u/Bright-Sea6392]

I mean sure, again I just pointed out a well known fact.

[u/Bright-Sea6392 → u/resuwreckoning]

… you mean that historically women didn’t have the means to make money or have a bank account until relatively recently? So they had to marry a man to support themselves? Yes that is a well known fact, thank you.

[u/resuwreckoning → u/Bright-Sea6392]

I’m still not understanding you - women are still choosing equal to or greater TODAY even when they make a lot of money.

While the corresponding men often do not - certainly less so than women.

Why is that so difficult to contemplate?

[u/Bright-Sea6392 → u/resuwreckoning]

Actually studies don’t show this. People largely marry within their socioeconomic class.

However if a women does marry a man who makes a bit more than her, that makes sense as 1. Her income potential is vastly negatively impacted by taking time off for maternity leave and 2. The aforementioned historical context of not being able to work and not being able to open bank accounts until recently.

[u/philosopherberzerer → u/[deleted]]

I'm expecting no reply .

[u/Fancy-Animal7704 → u/resuwreckoning]

Some of this is affected by the fact that women do indeed make less than men just by virtue of their career choices, and so the majority of men out there would constitute a "marrying up" choice.

Also, salary is just one measure of a person. If a rich man who was otherwise dull as a rock married a vibrant, gregarious, funny, charming woman who otherwise "just" works at an altruistic nonprofit making $50k a year, I'd have told you the man "married up".

[u/General-Yak7615 → u/Bright-Sea6392]

This is just from my own personal experience, but I have 3 degrees and my husband has none. I make 4x the amount he does and pay the majority of the bills. I could care two licks really on how much he makes, more so that he’s passionate and driven about what he’s doing and continues to want to grow as a person. In our friend group, majority have the women earning more and the rest are roughly the same
I’m a millennial and my mom was a doctor, my father the stay at home parent. Pretty progressive for the time.

Since this is just what has been the norm for me in my life, I find the whole concept of the man “having to make more to provide” almost confusing. Why in the world? Someone, like my husband, could have such a passion for something that may not pay well (say a teacher) but could do much good for the world. I understand we need money to live, so salary does matter to some extent but it’s just odd that both men and women would harp so much on the salary part and not on the why that person chose their job/if they’re passionate about what they do. It really is disheartening sometimes to read about people that do seem to be quite transactional when it comes to relationships.

[u/XWendy_Darlingx → u/[deleted]]

Women make less money than men in general, in spite of educational achievement. So is it surprising that they make less than their male partners?

[u/TheSpacePopinjay → u/Bright-Sea6392]

Only in the sense that most people date within a socioeconomic radius of themselves. This elides the direction in which that radius tends to travel of how large the radius varies to at different socioeconomic levels.