This is a wild ass guess, but low self esteem might be more noticeable (and more of a deal breaker, possibly) for women. I’d be interested to see what some of the women on the board think, because I could be totally off base.
That’s an interesting analogy, but women make up half of society. If they want society to treat men with the same standards of respect that they’ve negotiated for themselves, nothing is stopping them.
I saw something recently (may have been CNN) with two women discussing the World Cup, and the popularity of Norway’s Erling Haaland. All they talked about was what he looked like; one of them said he was cute. I thought that sort of objectification was frowned on these days.
It’s broader than just standards of respect – it includes all expectations for men and women.
The first part I quoted from @Kimstu is an acknowledgement that the feminist movement (not sure if that’s the right term), did a lot for women, but not a lot for men (at least directly).
The second part asserts that men’s progress is primarily held back by men. This resonates with me when I think about all of the silly man stuff I insist on doing – like carrying the heavy stuff when we’re walking somewhere.
I will add that I think the second part is quickly becoming obsolete. When I look at the attitudes my kids and their peers have, it seems like men are renegotiating their contract with society. It’s anecdotal, of course, but perhaps more relevant than all of our personal experiences from 2 or 3 decades ago. (No slight intended on those posts).
Finally, yes, your anecdote from TV is something we frown upon.
Put 10 single men and 10 single women in a room. The men will be flirting with most of the women. All the women will be flitering with… one man. Or maybe two, tops.
That is a strangely accurate autocorrect.The women do indeed filter their selections.
? How is this rather dogmatic-sounding hypothetical scenario even supposed to manifest itself, logistically speaking? Eight men are circling the outskirts of the group fruitlessly trying to chat up eight or nine women ignoring them while they jostle one another to try to get the attention of the two “alpha” guys? While the one or two women adjudged “unflirtable” sit in the corner, ignored by all?
I’ve been in a lot of social events with other single people over the decades, and they really don’t operate like that.
Or maybe you were trying to describe some kind of speed-dating organized singles event consisting of individual one-on-one encounters, rather than actual group socializing.
In my experience, I’ll be chatting up one of the women, she’ll be laughing at my jokes, touching my arm, and tugging her hair and whatnot while three of her friends will be nagging her every 2 minutes “I’m bored! I want to go somewhere else!”. If I’m lucky, one or more of my knucklehead friends doesn’t come over and cock-block me by pulling some nonsense that drives everyone away.
And maybe 5 women to 10 men would be a more accurate ratio.
But as @CaveMike mentioned, these are anecdotal experiences from like 20-30 years ago.
Nevermind, hijack
Yeah, I don’t see that happening. I’d expect to see a few group conversations. If flirting happened I’d be unaware.
ETA: Double post removed.
Okay, so how do we get to the point where men renegotiate our social contract to remove the things that hold us back? Any discussion that things should be improved for men often gets labeled and mocked. Or it gets dismissed as something only those men can fix, so no one else needs to worry about it.
I’m old enough to remember when “women’s lib” was mocked and dismissed. It wasn’t something to be taken seriously, it was just a punch line on Match Game. I sometimes wonder if we’re in that same stage for men, and in a couple decades people will start to say “yeah, things could be better.”
Do we? No one where I saw it seemed to think it was out of line. Not many people actually call out that sort of behavior.
I didn’t take that comment as a literal description of a single moment at a social event; but as a general description of men’s and women’s preferences. The ten men might want to chat with multiple women over the course of an evening, for example, not all at the same time.
Not at any party or bar I’ve ever been to.
In other words, in your experience three out of four women won’t be flirting with anybody?
— in my experience, the most likely way that scenario would come up would be if the three friends were trying to warn the one flirting with you that you were trouble.
You didn’t take the whole thing as satire?
Do you mean the original discussion I described, or @CaveMike’s response? In either case, the answer is no.
We raise kids that don’t care about old fashioned ideas of what makes a real man. For example:
- a man can be a nurse
- a man can make less money than his wife
- a man can show emotions
- a man can like figure skating
- a boy can be good at school
- etc.
And we encourage and reinforce these freedoms with boys much like we do with “girl power”.
Making this list reminded me of one of the songs on Free To Be… You and Me by Marlo Thomas about a boy playing with dolls. An example of the feminist movement pushing for men as well as women.
I meant the TV link.
How about some more institutional things? We could require public school teachers to use methods that show better results with boys (balanced with those that show better results for girls). We could have something akin to STEM fairs, promoted by corporations and politicians, and provide mentorship for men to enter fields that currently skew toward women.
These are good ideas. In particular anything that can help close the gap between girls and boys in early schooling would be huge. That was the most concerning thing to me in the OP’s transcript.
I’m retired from a majority female profession, and that may be the only reason I’m married now (I met my wife at a librarian keg party). My previous relationship was also with a librarian. These weren’t coworkers; I worked for a huge library system (Brooklyn Public) and my wife worked for New York Public. I was aware of a “most male librarians are gay” stereotype, but that didn’t bother me.
That’s how i would read that situation, too.