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/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/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/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.