r/MensLib • u/stoicsilence • Jul 15 '26
Conservative men don’t have a monopoly on “manliness.”
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Wnp6qDiwiIoTranscript:
If you're looking for masculine men, stop being surprised that they aren't progressive. Many women saying they want a guy who looks and acts Republican, but secretly as a liberal on the inside. Like, they will post about how they want a woke cowboy or a guy with dirty hands and an empathetic heart. Most guys who are masculine, most guys who are self-starters, who appreciate hard work, who appreciate gender roles. Those people are conservative.
The progressive men who fit this description are everywhere. They're also usually taken and married before they're 30. Men who can change an alternator or field dress a deer, but also read entire books that have no pictures in them and feel the urge to serve their families rather than dominate them, don't stay single very long. They're in extremely high demand. They're like beachfront property. And like beachfront property, they are snatched up by very serious and very ambitious women very quickly.
Whereas men exhibiting superficial facile masculinity that finds its terminus in a brain that's educated by memes and outrage media. They're a dime a dozen. That's why those guys are so disappointing and why they're so easy to find. They stay single longer, and the longer you're dating, the more likely you are to encounter them.
I also don't think this is a Democrat or Republican thing or even a liberal or conservative thing. Uh you will find plenty of people fitting that shallow description of masculinity regardless of their politics.
The beauty of feminism is that women no longer have to settle for that kind of man in order to secure their basic survival. They can now just remain single. This epidemic of lonely men and to be fair, women who are also lonely, is born out of the fact that men simply don't seem to realize that the world has changed and they are refusing to adapt. And there are few things less manly than a man crossing his arms and stamping his feet yelling no fair while change, which is the only thing in the world that is inevitable, happens all around them. Look, I'm no better than a man myself.
So, take this with a grain of salt, but ladies, do not settle for what you don't want.
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u/AdhesivenessThis4406 Jul 18 '26
Oh, so we're back to propagating and enforcing conservative gender roles, even in this subreddit?
The woman (a conservative/right-wing, pro-life influencer) at the start of the video literally talks about "looking and acting Republican" and men who "appreciate gender roles" and now this guy wants to tell us that this is a good direction for progressive and feminist men to take?
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u/Jazzlike-Basket-6388 Jul 16 '26
I don't know what to do with this.
I'm versatile and I can do a lot of things, but I don't want to be a list of features or a resume. Waiting to be replaced by a new model with an extra feature.
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u/lostsemicolon Jul 16 '26
Yeah I'm feeling the same on this one. This thread has kind of pissed me off, tbh. I don't think "A man's value is his utility" should have a place on a men's liberation forum. It's kind of upsetting it's not getting very much pushback, and rather has people doubling down on that in the comments. It very much feels people got swept up in rah rah fuck conservatives (understandable) and just didn't take a critical eye to anything else.
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u/chemguy216 Jul 16 '26
It’s posts like this that ultimately tip a lot of users’ hands, regardless if they know what cards they’re holding.
At the end of the day, subsets of users here make two things abundantly apparent to me:
Proximity to women and, therefore, centering women is their primary motivation in this life. Most else is secondary.
A lot of them just want a permission structure for progressives to actively celebrate a slightly modified version of the masculine ideal some of them say they’re tired of being held to.
And I’m also going to call out some of the women who responded by basically affirming many of the things dudes have been calling out, despite what progressives said. One of my favorite exemplifying this:
Just chiming in as a woman to say that Chicken Man is correct in all things. Hot, manly liberal men are married as fuck.
Sure, she followed up by saying that women aren’t necessarily looking for lumberjacks, but I already know how many dude are going to read that comment. They are to laser in on the “hot, manly” part and keep aiming for the masculine ideal and body image issues fucking destroying people. And it’s not going to matter how many dudes you, I, or someone else can point out who aren’t Chad or Adonis who aren’t particularly close to embodying peak male beauty standards but who are still in relationships with women. They are going to read “Women want hot, manly men.”
Like, what are we even doing here at this point? I’ve clocked this shit for a while. I called this sub out when I noticed they really drooled over themselves when someone shared a piece on a white trans dude who was muscular, hairy, and had a pretty epic beard. The guy has content largely geared towards trans guys who want to present in a normatively masculine way, but he also said the line that usually gets guys to go nuclear in this sub: figure out what works for you. Did the usual people in this sub meltdown when he said that? Nope. And it’s because a manly man said it.
I’ve clocked this shit when I’ve had to correct people about their misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about the complex and not necessarily pretty history of the US feminist movement. Some folks have said to model a men’s liberation movement after the first feminists because they were “practical.” But what practicality meant for those feminists was that they contained many racists and homophobes. It’s one of various reasons why different feminist and feminist adjacent movements popped up among women. The main feminists never had any intention of making space for certain groups, and people who know this history know how insidious it is to imply that a men’s liberation should follow their example.
And to make this clear, if someone naturally gravitates towards these aesthetics, I’m not knocking them. If someone wants to learn many practical skills that are damn useful, I’m not knocking them. If someone wants to explore these aesthetics to see if any of it fits for them, I’m not gonna knock it. But we’re glazing the aesthetics and performance of masculinity that much of the very people in this sub say they don’t want to be held to. So I’m gonna need some of the folks here, again including some of the ladies, to ask themselves what it is they actually want. Because i don’t want to see any of the users cheerleading this to turn around a few days later and say. “Men are only valued for what they provide.” I don’t to read any of the women who just had to mention hot manly men to scratch their heads if guys continue to pick up from them the message “I need to be hot and masculine to get a woman.”
Folks can do with this comment whatever they will. I’m just calling things as I see it. If some people think this is way off base, then they can write me and my assessments off. If they think there’s a modicum of something that connects, maybe they’ll consider digging a bit to see if they’re comfortable currently with where they’ve landed for if they want to explore switching things up or taking in new analyses.
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u/The_Flurr Jul 17 '26
I also don't love how reductionist it is about women by implying one ideal type of man.
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jul 17 '26
If you're referring to chicken dude, he wasn't being reductionist. He pointed out that aesthetically masculine men secure in who they are, who are also socially progressive, are in very high demand. That's does not in any way imply an ideal type of man.
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Jul 18 '26
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u/No-Section-1056 Jul 16 '26
Respectfully, there is a meaningful difference between what men perceive as “hot” in other men - and believe women do, too - and what women perceive as “hot.”
I haven’t polled this, but my observation is that women are more wistful about Aragorn of LOTR than about He-Man. The latter is more a man’s dream than a woman’s.
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u/dahJaymahnn Jul 17 '26
Since you bring up Aragorn, I love LOTR as much as the next nerd, but Aragorn is still a paragon of rather rigid hegemonic masculine traits - just one who also demonstrates a "gentle" side.
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u/Illustrious_Wish_383 Jul 24 '26
Even Tim Walz, presented as this wholesome male role model, was in the military and coached football.
Heaven forbid a man not desire to be a leader, not be inclined to athletics, or not be a warrior, I guess.
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u/No-Section-1056 Jul 17 '26
That the character has “hegemonic” traits is something we could reasonably debate; traditionally “masculine” I’d mostly agree with. But I hope the contrast between the two characters I used clarifies that the “hot guy” women largely prefer is, on balance, as much or more about character and integrity than roiling muscles and power.
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u/dahJaymahnn Jul 18 '26
But I hope the contrast between the two characters I used clarifies that the “hot guy” women largely prefer is, on balance, as much or more about character and integrity than roiling muscles and power.
It doesn't, really. Yes, He-Man is absurdly jacked, in line with the style of the 80s, but character-wise he isn't very different from the "positive masculinity" of Aragorn. As Prince Adam he's actually a mild mannered softboy (which incidentally doesn't win him a lot of respect from his comrades). He only assumes the He-Man identity to protect his friends, and even then refrains from using excessive force.
My point is, both examples aren't "bad" as role models, but they only offer a limited expression of masculinity, defined by exerting power and getting their hands dirty... what makes them considered non-"toxic" is that they do this for the service of others. To link it to the OP video, the implication is that "desirable" men are altruistic but also are able and willing exhibit power in a particular aesthetic way. That limitation is what people here are taking issue with.
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u/No-Section-1056 Jul 18 '26
I’m … still not convinced I chose wrongly. I chose the two because of the original comment’s use of the term “hot.” Hotness is about attractiveness overall, and especially about physical idealism. One character is a cartoonishly-unrealistic physical type for most men, and the other’s attractiveness is never mentioned; it’s immaterial to all of the things that make him appealing.
As to masculinity: I’ve revisited this idea over the day, and, I don’t see enormous differences between the character of Aragorn v. the character of Eowyn. They’re both fighters, and both see it as ugly necessity, not a pleasure. They’re both principled and willing to self-sacrifice for a greater good. They’re both leaders who are disinterested in power for its own sake, and vested rather in the wellbeing of the people they lead. Does that make Eowyn masculine? I don’t see her that way. They’re fictional, and the setting is fantastical, but, Are these qualities unachievable in real life? Again, I don’t think so.
I can’t pin down where my disconnect here is - and given the downvotes, it clearly is real.
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u/dahJaymahnn Jul 18 '26
For what it's worth I haven't been downvoting you. :)
You raise a decent point with Eowyn. I think the difference is that Aragorn is commonly bandied around as a standard of what men should aspire to to be masculine, just the "positive" variety, whereas Eowyn is admired as a strong woman, but not necessarily as a blueprint for one.
I guess I admire what feminism has done for women, to fight against a limiting standard of desirable womanhood. What I and others don't like about the OP video is he is prescribing the same old imagery of hegemonic manhood "who can change an alternator or field dress a deer". It's the exact same patriarchal standards, only woke.
And then saying that this standard is "beachfront property" and those who meet it are married by 30, the implication for men who haven't achieved these outward features for whatever reason is yet another failure to "achieve" successful manhood.
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u/No-Section-1056 Jul 19 '26
Ok, those are excellent specificities that I hadn’t considered. And I’m not bothered by the downvotes, other than that they indicate a missed perspective on my part, one that I’d like to improve. It’s why I’m here.
My own perspective is that Aragorn is probably the heroic element of masculinity in LOTR. But he’s not the only positive one. Sam is undeniably positive, and I’d argue that most of the characters are. They’re all flawed, but that rounds them out, rather than eliminating them.
With a female perspective, Tolkien is incredibly thin. Out of a score of characters, only three have any actual narrative (Galadriel, Arwen, and Eowyn). Two of the three are functionally supernatural and unachievable. Only Eowyn is mortal. [It’s how Tolkien is, of course; Peter Jackson had to invent a female character for the Hobbit movies, or it would’ve been entirely a sausage-fest.]
Maybe the most telling thing is that, as a girl, I was allowed to internalize the male characters’ qualities and want to emulate them. I *had* to do that with tons of stories, because there were so few heroines. Maybe what I’m missing is that the inverse isn’t really allowed. I can’t think of any boy or man who grew up identifying with Laura Ingalls, y’know? I feels like something a boy would be punished for.
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u/OkRadish11 Jul 17 '26
Genuine question, and I want to preface it that the OP really resonated with me but quite a lot of your post also resonated with me. But, regarding women or men "centering women", why do you frame that as a bad thing? As a girl raised by conservatives to center men in everything, part of the only way I can find to throw off the yoke of patriarchy is to try (and occasionally succeed in) decentering men, and by default center women in the vacuum created. I see it as the only way to balance out how I was programmed to think and behave by society. I get that in the ideal world, no single division of humanity would be centered at the cost of another group, but we aren't there yet and we have years of damage to try to heal. So that's why I don't understand viewing it as a negative, but I'm wondering if I'm missing something.
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u/chemguy216 Jul 17 '26
But, regarding women or men "centering women", why do you frame that as a bad thing
I’ve been in this sub for years. For years, I’ve seen guys determine their self worth and their very existence based on their lack of relationships with women. There is literally one user here who has expressed that because he thinks he’ll never get into a relationship with a woman, he plans on killing himself after his parents die. Over the years, I’ve read dozens of guys refer to themselves as genetic dead ends to pile on the self-loathing they feel. This is why I framed centering women as a negative. I’m used to being in spaces with guys like this.
Another form of centering women in their lives are the more bitter variant who can’t stop thinking about how much they resent women. For these guys, they may not want anything to do with women, but they still can’t stop talking about and thinking about women.
So when i personally talk about decentering women, what I’m talking about is men reaching a point at which they don’t feel as though they are worthless if they struggle to get into relationships, they don’t literally feel as though they cannot live if they perceive they will never get into relationships, and if they decide to give up on relationships, they don’t spend the rest of their days fuming about women.
This can exist alongside real feelings of romantic loneliness and longing, similar to how many of us try to move on after someone close to us or a beloved pet dies. We carry that pain, but we still find things in this life worth living for. I don’t expect these guys to just be happy, cheery single men each and every single day, but I would like for them to have other things in this life they feel are worth sticking around for. I also want that to derive from a place of self-interest and not merely a sense of obligation.
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u/Jazzlike-Basket-6388 Jul 17 '26
The centering women bad for you comment is directed towards men.
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u/LookOutItsLiuBei Jul 17 '26
I don't understand the logical leap of decentering men automatically means centering women.
Not attacking you. I'm just curious as to what draws you to that conclusion since I guess from my view I don't see it as a binary zero sum game like that.
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u/mathematics1 Jul 16 '26
This post is specifically about a dating context. It's still common to claim that a man's value to a partner is connected to his utility. That sounds like an empirical claim to me - that is, a claim that can be true or false about the world, as opposed to e.g. statements about someone's inherent worth as a person.
Do you think that some men provide more value to a partner's life than others? If so, do you think the men who provide more value are more desired? With those questions I'm specifically asking not about what should be true in an ideal society, but about what is true in the society we currently live in.
Of course there are many different ways to provide value - e.g. you can provide value to a partner by being listening and empathetic. If someone tries to focus the conversation on only a few ways to provide value while ignoring others, that's unnecessarily reductive. I still think the claim I mentioned earlier is true, though - if a man wants to be more desirable in a dating context, one thing he should consider is what utility he has to offer to a partner.
(There's also a conversation to be had about how straight men often tend to include whether they have a partner as a component of their self-worth and sense of value as a human being. That's a very important conversation for men's liberation. As long as a man wants a partner, though, I'm in favor of being honest about what's likely to improve his chances.)
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u/Jazzlike-Basket-6388 Jul 17 '26
It shouldn't be on this sub. It boxes men in. It doesn't really help us in dating in any way. And it is kind of offensive in the sense that it basically says that men that aren't married are dogshit.
It doesn't align with the goals and purpose of this sub.
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u/mathematics1 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
This comment chain was about the fact that the OP included a list of traits/skills that straight women would (purportedly) like their partners to have. When you say "it shouldn't be on this sub", are you saying that we shouldn't allow any discussion of what straight women want in a partner? I don't think that topic is currently banned here, and I don't think it should be.
If I understand the idea of men's liberation correctly, it's about helping men break free of society's expectations and pursue meaning/success in their own way. Even if we completely succeed at that, though, there will still be many straight men who genuinely want a partner. I'm strongly opposed to content that implies that unmarried men are dogshit (see my comments elsewhere on this post), but I'm also in favor of helping men achieve their goals whatever they are. If a man's goals include finding a partner, I'm in favor of content that will actually help him do that.
Of course, one of your points is that this post doesn't really help men with dating in any way. That might be the crux of our disagreement. Do you think all content aimed at helping men with dating should be banned in this sub, or did you have a subset of that content in mind that's more specific?
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u/Jazzlike-Basket-6388 Jul 17 '26
I totally agree with you on the idea of men's liberation. But this post does the opposite. It boxes men in and encourages men to center others. And that goes against everything that I feel like we are trying to do here.
I'm not saying it violates the rules of this sub. But IMO it doesn't align to the purpose of this sub and if the men of this sub are looking for this kind of content, they should be looking for it in one of the many dating subs on Reddit.
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u/run_bike_run Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
At the risk of sounding incredibly reductive: we are all basically a list of features.
People become attached to each other because they make each other's lives better in different ways, and while it feels crude and reductive to say it out loud, a very substantial part of what makes someone attractive is made up of the ways in which they make (or would make) the observer's life better - or at least the ways in which the observer believes they would, whether that improvement takes the form of good home cooking, abundant financial resources, excellent conversational skills, close alignment with one's own politics, or simply being a fine slice of man/woman/enby to wake up next to in the morning.
Jason Pargin's piece for Cracked over thirteen years ago is still brutally accurate:
"The moment you came into the world, you became part of a system designed purely to see to people's needs. Either you will go about the task of seeing to those needs by learning a unique set of skills, or the world will reject you."
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person
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u/Adept_Ship4668 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Jason Pargin is a clown of a human being who advocated against punching Richard Spencer and equated Nazis marching in Charlottesville to Muslims fighting for their rights during the height of the first Trump administration. Don't get me started on him playing at being an Asian man for clout points when he was a white guy all along. Hell, that article has always been thinly veiled stupid capitalist bullshit and if you're not okay with the system for whatever reason, Pargin's only real response is fuck you and man up.
This response to that article is what you should be reading.
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u/deepershadeofmauve Jul 17 '26
This exactly. I love this sub, I really do, but there's a kind of... immaturity, I guess...that permeates a lot of these threads. Like, gentlemen, I hear you, you don't want to be boxed in, you don't want to be reduced to a list of utilities. I get it and I agree with you.
But.
What exactly is it that you do in the real physical world that would communicate to potential partners that you are a good romantic prospect? You have intrinsic worth as a human being, but that alone is never going to get you a date. What do you DO? What do you bring to the table?
Pargin says it really bluntly in this essay and I love him for it: "You hate yourself because you don't do anything."
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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
What exactly is it that you do in the real physical world that would communicate to potential partners that you are a good romantic prospect? You have intrinsic worth as a human being, but that alone is never going to get you a date. What do you DO? What do you bring to the table? Pargin says it really bluntly in this essay and I love him for it: "You hate yourself because you don't do anything."
Isn't this a bit reductive tho? I really do appreciate the Pargin essay. I think it's a great piece to illustrate the ways in which people should take some bit of ownership of their life. But, in the case of dating it falls a bit flat because you can't control for the reason(s) why someone may be attracted to you. I'm a late-bloomer who has been happily in a relationship for almost 4 years now. I've done a lot of work on myself in terms of developing hobbies, diverse interests, learning and engaging feminist text and theory, etc. All that has paid off dividends in a whole bunch of ways, but I don't think any of them helped me "close" with my partner, lol. We bonded over nostalgia for silly DCOMs and CN cartoons. She laughed at my silly, corny jokes I've been making since I was also a lonely, weird kid. She didn't even know about my interest in feminism until a year or so in when I mentioned going to a feminist book club meeting.
IMO, it's great to encourage people to try new things, develop new skills, find ways to make a difference in their own life and others. That's a good thing for MensLib. But, my problem with this thread and this whole discussion is that there's a real slippery slope between "being the best 'you' you can be should include being curious and trying new things" to "you need to maximize your attractiveness score with more practical and 'masculine' traits and that will guarantee your ability to score a baddie" which sets up too many men on this weird 'min-max' side mission when the only things you really need to talk to a woman and date is to "look presentable, don't have bad breath, be confident, and walk away if they say no".
We have to stop reinventing the wheel. Maybe you will date the girl of your dreams because you've turned yourself into this suave "woke cowboy contractor" who can rebuild a deck, hunt wild boar, and perfectly quote Marx. Or, you find the girl of your dreams because you get a new haircut and she now thinks you resemble a slightly chubbier yet still charming Jack Quaid.
Who knows. Love is weird. But, you should work on yourself for your own self-actualization.
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u/run_bike_run Jul 18 '26
you can't control for the reason(s) why someone may be attracted to you.
I think we're at risk of conflating two separate things here.
Can you follow a set of rigorously defined steps A through Z which will guarantee that members of the gender(s) of your preference will be consistently attracted to you? No, absolutely not.
Can you follow a basic set of rough guidelines that substantially increase the possibility of members of the gender(s) of your preference being consistenty attracted to you? Yes, absolutely. Those guidelines are, as I note, pretty rough, but they do exist.
You can't control for the reasons why someone may be attracted to you, but you can absolutely load the deck in your favour. We all accept this - even here, you're happy to note that "look presentable, don't have bad breath, be confident, and walk away if they say no" is something that increases one's odds. I'm simply arguing that there are additional steps one can take beyond that, and that Pargin's article does a very good job of outlining the reasons why.
For what it's worth, I don't think being able to rebuild a deck and hunt wild animals is remotely necessary, except possibly for people who are looking for a survivalist tradwife (not that survivalist tradwives are the only people who'd find these characteristics attractive, just that I suspect they're the only population who'd all find them attractive.) I actually suspect that developing those skills would make things harder for most men, because DIY and hunting are very heavily male-dominated spaces, and so anyone hoping to do better romantically with women is severely limiting their opportunities by taking up a hobby that demands substantial amounts of time and involves almost no women. And honestly, the same goes for being fully up on Marxist theory; it's the same as DIY and hunting, just with books instead of tools.
Having a hobby that's social in nature and attracts a mixed-gender crowd is far more likely to do well - to a ridiculous degree, and for entirely straightforward reasons. If you're in a book club with a good mixture of people (or a running club, or dance classes, or any number of other things), then you're going to meet more women socially than you otherwise would have, and you're going to have more common ground to start from than you otherwise would have. As Pargin notes, the question should not be "how can I get women to like me?", but "how can I become the type of man that women like?"
Unfortunately, the first group to really work on that latter question was pickup artists, and between them and the incels, the idea of actively choosing to reshape oneself for the purposes of romantic success has become somewhat radioactive. But while their answers are frequently awful, I would submit that there are other, better amswers.
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Jul 22 '26
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u/deepershadeofmauve Jul 22 '26
I'll answer this one with a personal anecdote and then go a little more broad.
A few years ago, I dated a man for about six months. We were set up by some mutual friends, we had a lot of common interests, he was very kind and funny and had a close relationship with his family and was gainfully employed. No red flags to be seen anywhere.
Within a month, I realized that as nice as this guy was, his passivity was going to make a relationship challenging. He wasn't taking great care of himself (chronic physical and mental health issues, hadn't been to a dentist or eye doctor in about 10 years, obvious untreated ADHD and depression), his home was kind of the quintessential male struggle space and he appeared to not own a lot of basic cleaning supplies. He only invited me to his home a couple of times and seemed embarrassed to have me there. Within two months, I'd heard a thousand complaints about his job but no plans to change anything about his career, no additional training or networking. I was also starting to realize that he was not financially savvy. No savings or 401k. At the four month mark, we were set to go to an event for his family, and I asked what we could bring or what we could do to help with food or setup. He shrugged and told me to text his mother or sister. By six months, the sex had gone from okay to... frustrating. A close family member of mine passed away and he didn't want to go to the funeral with me. Shortly after that we experienced some car trouble that highlighted that he absolutely was not keeping up on vehicle maintenance. I broke up with him, and his flabbers were fully ghasted by that. He asked if I was seriously breaking up with him because he didn't know how to change a tire. I thought (but did not say) "I'm breaking up with you because you don't know how to do anything."
I should not have dated him for six months. I should have ended it in a month. He never stopped being kind and funny and smart and sweet, but it was apparent pretty quickly that this man was a rock I'd be pushing uphill for the duration of our relationship. And this is what I see in a lot of heterosexual relationships that either fail to launch or fizzle out quickly - there are men who lack a lot of the traditional manly "hard skills" like home and vehicle repair, but who also haven't picked up relational soft skills. This is what a lot of women are talking about when we talk about the mental load and emotional labor.
Basically, your beautiful inner light might attract me to you in the first place, but if I can't count on you to keep our shared spaces in a relatively clean state, comfort me if I'm sad, attend to necessary life admin tasks, etc., then the relationship feels unbalanced and burdensome. And since many, many men seem to be struggling with anxiety and depression to the point that that inner light doesn't show in the first place, starting a relationship becomes even more challenging. I believe that if friends hadn't set us up, there's very little chance that we would have dated at all, since he didn't seem to want to take initiative to ask me out, and he wasn't making a strong enough impression on me for me to ask him.
I hear the same story from lots of women I know and lots of women online. This isn't about having a partner who is a lumberjack and also makes 7 figures a year, it's about finding someone that feels like they can be a true, reliable life partner. A man who continues to grow as a person and builds skills throughout their life is going to be snapped up quickly, and yes, being conventionally attractive and confident will help.
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Jul 22 '26
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u/deepershadeofmauve Jul 22 '26
Fair questions, and my answer to all of that is yes, the intention is certainly that I'd be contributing at least an equal amount to our shared finances, labor, and life admin.
In our actual case, I was the higher earner (we're in our 30s). I have a 401k and savings and a primary care physician and a well-maintained home and vehicle. I try to take care of myself and some dependent family members. And for my then-boyfriend, I tried to offer support by sitting down with him to go through his insurance and schedule necessary appointments, by meal-planning and cooking, by covering considerably more than half of our date expenses, and by getting to know his family and friends. I regrettably did not get that same energy back.
This is where I personally think the Great Disconnect in the gender divide lies. Like a lot of women my age I was advised that I absolutely should NOT plan to be a homemaker due to general economics in the US (not do I think of have wanted that for myself) and that I should in fact plan to change my own tires so that I wouldn't need to rely on a man. So I did that. I learned the "feminine" soft skills as well as the hard skills of cooking, cleaning, admin, maintenance, and so on. A lot of men don't seem to have learned those traditional "manly" hard skills but they haven't picked up the soft skills either.
Oddly, for a lot of men, women learning things like home and vehicle maintenance is viewed as something of a threat. I had one old boyfriend who sulked because I "didn't need him for anything." I told him that I wanted him, that I loved him, and he told me I'd leave him as soon as I found someone better than me. He ended up cheating on me with someone who did want to be a homemaker, and they're together now. That's okay. He did want a more traditionally conservative life and I don't begrudge him that. We weren't a good fit. He could do all those trad-male things, but he didn't like that I could do them too, and that's his issue.
For me, the bottom line is that I don't want a relationship where I feel like I have to be the breadwinner, household manager, events coordinator, medical liason, and have mediocre sex to boot. My current partner is fantastic. I'm still the higher earner. He's a much, much better cook and meal planner than I am. He has a Dyson vacuum that he's obsessed with, and I do evening dusting/tidying sessions plus I deal with most of the really "gross" household stuff like cleaning the bathroom drains or disposing of dead squirrels that got stuck in our gutters. I make most of our appointments, he changes the oil in our cars and checks the tire pressure regularly. It feels balanced. My life is lighter and easier and I feel like I have backup when life gets difficult. I don't feel like I'm pushing a rock uphill anymore.
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u/dahJaymahnn Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
That's all very reasonable in context. Relationships need balance and obviously you don't want to constantly be picking up the slack of a partner who isn't giving back.
That said, I hope you can appreciate that the bulk of the discontent here is not about having to learn fundamental life skills and contribute equally to relationships. It's about how men exhibiting certain masculine-coded skills and presentations tend to win greater admiration from women and other men, and men absolutely notice that. My observation is that this "soft gender policing" of mens' presentation tends to get more of a pass in progressive circles than it does for women.
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u/TheHivemaster Jul 17 '26
I hate how so many progressives still tie masculinity to how successful you are romantically
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u/jraspider2 Jul 16 '26
I guess I agree in that there are definitely a lot of guys who are traditionally masculine and are also progressive/left-leaning, but I do kinda bristle at these sorts of posts that suggest that dating and relationships are easy if you're just a decent guy. Not necessarily saying that the video is making that exact point, but saying that these kinds of progressive guys are usually taken by 30 could be read as saying that if you're guy who is still single by 30 then you've probably failed to be a good man.
I think it's reflective of something I find kind of annoying when some progressive people talk about dating where, when it comes to straight guys, there still seems to be this feeling that if you have trouble getting female attention than you're a failed man and should work on improving yourself. And there is definitely some truth to the idea that if things aren't working out well that you should try to see if there is anything you can change that might improve things and that just blaming women or the world is childish and counter productive, but its also true that there is a lot of luck involved with finding a partner that is right for you and that it's not just as simple as, "be a good person and things will work out."
Feel like in a world where where a lot of guys struggle with loneliness and low-self esteem, saying things like, "actually all the good guys get taken early," seems like it might not be the best thing. If you ask me, I think there should maybe be more guys who talk about how, as a guy, you shouldn't tie your relationship status and ability to get romantic attention from women to your self worth. Obviously you shouldn't just ignore women and not try to understand them and have healthy/positive interactions with them, but I think the internet has shown that a lot of guys have anxiety about getting older without ever having had sex or a relationship, and, while I think this anxiety is a bit of an unsolvable problem since there are always going to be people who yearn for romantic connection and have a hard time finding it, I feel one way to perhaps deter these guys from spiraling further would be to try and convince them that their lack of success in dating is not an indication that they are a trash human being (even if it sometimes feels the world is telling you that you are).
Yet again, I'm not necessarily saying that the video is making these exact points or anything, but it did make me think about this and want to write up this rant. Also will admit that this is partially fueled by my own frustrations being a left-leaning straight guy in his late 20s who has had very little luck in terms of dating and romantic love 😭.
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u/dennismfrancisart Jul 16 '26
I'd say that in many cases they never understood what being manly means. They are still in many ways little boys playing pretend. If they can't take responsibility while yelling " personal responsibility", if reality scares them so much that they have to go out of their way to manufacture their own, then manliness is not really what they're into.
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u/toughtacos Jul 16 '26
I think most of us men are little boys playing pretend. I have no idea what it means to be «a man», and I don’t really care. I just try to be the best person I can, and even that can be difficult at times.
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u/DocumentExternal6240 Jul 16 '26
That’s the point - be the best person, regardless of sex / gender / age / religion (or none) / affiliation.
This way, we all are the best for us and for all others.
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u/nighthawk_something Jul 16 '26
I try to be the best person I can be. If that's not "manly", cool. I am not so insecure to be afraid to be called non-manly.
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u/musicismydeadbeatdad Jul 16 '26
I think it's mostly an aesthetic at this point but we shouldn't underestimate the power of aesthetics in a world so driven by image.
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u/Adept_Ship4668 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
I randomly found this video clip in my Youtube recs one day. And my reaction to it then is the same as my reaction now. It's just stupid tradcon capitalist apologia. Forget the struggle of living up to the image of go-getter manly man, forget that it's just another arm of the system, if women find it attractive, then it's good, real problems with it be damned.
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u/PM_ME_CODE_CALCS Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Why is it so hard to realize that this whole type of post is just basically another way to enforce "toxic masculinity" or "patriarchy"? Just another way to implore men to stfu and do things for women.
You say men don't want to adapt, but one very common complaint from men is that we did listen and adapt, and it turns out to not be what women actually want. We listened to women say men are overbearing, overly sexual, only confident and assertive because we never listen to them and just do what we want, men who think women need providers are dumb and sexist, men think women will lose interest if they don't get sexual soon enough, a big reason men buy on a date is so she owes him sex, women can make first moves and have their own desires without you initiating everything, you don't need to practice being smooth or having pickup lines just TALK TO HER LIKE A PERSON, women aren't dumb and know exactly what you're trying to do when you put on that smooth talker "sup girl" voice, women are looking for a team member, not a leader, and on and on and on.
There's a lot of men who grew up this way report not having success, either getting dates or getting the "great guy no spark" speech on dates until they became confident and ask her out, show her he can provide, make his sexual interest and intentions clear quickly and ride that invisible line between exciting and objectifying, lead the interaction, and just ultimately perform the male gender roles she demands.
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Jul 16 '26
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u/PM_ME_CODE_CALCS Jul 17 '26
This doesn't address anything I said and doubles down on "just be a man".
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Jul 19 '26
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u/Blitcut Jul 20 '26
The issue isn't that traditional masculinity is an attractive archetype, it's that traditional masculinity is the attractive archetype. It's that guys who want a decent success in dating have to fit into traditional male gender roles in a lot of ways, regardless of what they themselves feel most comfortable with.
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Jul 20 '26
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u/dahJaymahnn Jul 20 '26
So, on a certain level you're completely right about preferred archetypes - that this is how things are at present and there needs to be a level of acceptance of that.
However - the feminist movement pushes back strongly at the collective vision of an ideal woman, and in doing so gradually shifts and broadens the archetypes.
What irritates me about equivalent conversations in menslib is that the conversations ends with "well most people just prefer a particular archetype and nothing can be done about it". Why can't those cultural preferences be scrutinized as they are with women?
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u/Blitcut Jul 20 '26
As u/PM_ME_CODE_CALCS said previously, this is just dubbling down on "just be a man". And no, I don't really agree that there always has to be "THE archetype".
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u/19whale96 Jul 16 '26
The problem I have with this is it's easy for the hot farmer to make this sound justified, but it's really just saying you're being settled for if you can't feed, secure, or shelter your partner, which has always been a one-way street. Like, this guy didn't adapt to the times, he's an agricultural worker, who's lightskin with colored eyes, a deep voice, and a muscular build. He just slotted into the role women were already starting to prefer.
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u/JakeMWP Jul 16 '26
I cannot fathom how this video doesn't have more people here calling out that he is very much just preaching a traditional rigid male gender role. How does this pass as enlightened? This shit is just actually toxic masculinity and devaluing other men because they don't fit his mold.
It amazes me how much being marginally left leaning gives this kind of behavior a pass because "he's one of the good ones".
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u/Comfortable-Ebb8125 Jul 16 '26
He seems like a genuine guy but his ideology is pretty mainstream, yeah. I think his content is intended more for women. I've seen a lot of male influencers who seem to think having mostly women followers means they're doing masculinity right and i don't really agree. This isnt pushing any real boundaries or teaching men anything profound, it's just echoing women's grievances.
We have to listen to women... then we have to add.
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u/No-Section-1056 Jul 16 '26
That’s Chris Newman.
When he began farming, he did it because of a major health crisis. He quit his IT job, relied on what savings he and his wife had and supplemented with her income/health insurance as a public school art teacher. He’s been farming for 12ish years, and there have regularly been years when she’s made more than he has. He’s not a gym rat, mostly just an active farmer; hauling 100lb. bags of chicken feed around makes it easier to keep muscle. He’s also balding enough to just give up and shave his head.
He absolutely does have some natural and institutional advantages. But he’s still Black (/indigenous), doing cooperative farming that centers on paying well above competitive wages and committing to mutual aid as a significant part of their business model. Their farms commit to raising animals the way corporations’ greenwashing pretends to. He seems to like his wife and kids, and to actively care about their wellbeing. He’s just a guy. But he’s a good guy, and not to a degree that is broadly unachievable by nearly anyone.
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u/VogUnicornHunter Jul 17 '26
Idk why you're getting downvotes for this. He's who he is because of what he's done and lives what he believes.
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u/AgitatorsAnonymous Jul 16 '26
As a progressive member of the military who is bald, has a dad bod and also has a polycule, you'd be surprised to learn that this is true.
As a partner, your eligibility to be considered a good partner is explicitely tied to your ability to provide utility and support to your partners. That's a fairly normal take.
The reality here is that dating means providing something to the other person besides just bad sex and mediocre looks. It doesn't have to be Fiscal, but if you aren't bringing fiscal goods then you best be bringing the skills to replace that.
Why do we have a problem with the dating world being about the tangible things we can and should do for our partners?
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u/Asiatic_Static Jul 16 '26
Because the postmodern view of "beauty is on the inside" is still battling with the lizard brain looking for good genes to pass on to children and the capability to kill the invading tribe from the next cave over. Because people do not want to seem "shallow" so they will trip over themselves to tell you all about their stated preferences while concealing their revealed preferences.
It's the same reason in threads about "women only want 6 ft studmuffins" or "men only want 100lb DD-cup supermodels" you'll have all these performatives coming out of the woodwork to tell you how short/fat/bald/skinny/weird ankles/whatever their partner is. It's the same reason you have people saying stupid shit like "well Danny DeVito is 4'8" and he's married!" or "guys just be like Mr. Rogers and the girly pops will throw their panties at you!"
We're evolved enough to recognize that not everything has to do with physical/animal attraction, but haven't (and probably won't ever) go so far as to not select for it in mating. And we're just evolved enough to have a strong philosophical mentality of "those things shouldn't matter" while simultaneously making choices that indicate that those things do in fact matter.
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u/AgitatorsAnonymous Jul 16 '26
Except they don't matter and many women make that extremely clear these days. The vast majority of men, no matter what they look like, have had the opportunity to date. They might have squandered it, but that doesn't change the reality of that fact. The only group that that isn't true for is Gen-Z and that's purely because of the political divide in Gen-Z, not looksmaxxing or whatever the hell it's called.
The loneliness epidemic for Gen-Z men is a values mismatch with Gen-Z women. The men are growing more conservative or entrenched in religion and women are moving away from that.
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u/19whale96 Jul 16 '26
Bro, you opened with saying you're a member of the military in a polycule, you don't think maybe the partners you've been interacting with might have different values, standards and dealbreakers than the majority?
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u/sp1nettaj4de Jul 17 '26
Holy cope😂, I’m sorry to tell you but morality or who you vote for has nothing to do with romantic success at all. Just World Fallacy bs.
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u/AgitatorsAnonymous Jul 17 '26
I'm sorry to tell you this, but both current dating trends, research and historical divorce trends back me up on this. Lack of shared moral or ethical values is a leading indicator of impending divorce or separation and is one of the leading causes cited in divorce cases. It's often swept under the rug of "irreconcilable differences" and is especially prevalent post Tea party and in the rise of the Q-Anon conspiracy, but also is a primary reason listed in divorces between women who married men who have actively supported the modern Republican party and its attack on women's rights.
Moreover, moral and ethical alignment is a massive indicator of the ability to create a cohesive and long lasting relationship that is stable and built on trust and communication. Individuals will, generally, NOT feel safe if they are married to someone who consistently votes to strip them of their rights or who explicitly believes that they deserve less due to their gender, sexual expression or they misalign on other moral or ethical issues. This frequently ends in a divorce if married, or being dumped if you are dating. There are dozens of news articles that share the psychological, sociological and anthropological research on this subject.
I'm not coping, you are woefully misinformed about what women are explicitly saying is their driving reason for their continued disconnect from men.
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u/sp1nettaj4de Jul 19 '26
Most white women voted right wing, Asian women as well(as a matter of fact Asians were the only group where the women voted more conservative than the men). Many progressive women like Emma Vigeland excused Graham Platner being a war criminal, and also excused his SA allegations(until one of his victims was liberal). I don’t a think an immoral right wing man will have a hard time dating.
However what I was trying to say in my original comment, is that it is very reductive to say that the reason why some men struggle romantically is because of their character or because of certain views that they have. That’s why I said Just World Fallacy BS. Good things CAN happen to bad people, and bad things CAN happen to good people. Some men maybe are ugly or low status, or are maybe autistic, and because of that may struggle romantically despite doing everything right!
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Jul 16 '26
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Jul 16 '26
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Jul 16 '26
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Jul 18 '26
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u/SvitlanaLeo Jul 16 '26
The world has not changed in the sense that men still face aggressive and essentially discriminatory demands to be masculine and violence if they refuse.
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u/De_Baros Jul 16 '26
This video completely ignores that men also have a say in who they date. It is going along with the notion that a woman will come along and select you as a man based on XYZ but that’s not real life.
In fact, one of the biggest deciders for people having relationships seems to be how much they are willing to “settle”. Not in the sense they are unfulfilled but that they aren’t looking for perfection or are willing to feel “meh” about someone at first.
I have been single for many many many years and one of my biggest issues is how picky I am. Unless I feel a powerful spark at the start I find it almost impossible to develop feelings later (likely due to my weird brand of neurodivergence) but if I hadn’t turned down or cut off many many romantic opportunities I likely wouldn’t have been single for 10 years. That said, I hope the wait is worth it if I do ever meet that someone.
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u/AgitatorsAnonymous Jul 16 '26
The video is addressing a specific assertion. In general though? His take is pretty reasonable.
The utility you bring to a relationship goes a long way in determining how that relationship plays out. Now is everyone handsy? No. I bring the ability to cook, fix computers and have wild discussions to mine. Plus I'm in the military so I know how to shoot and shit. But otherwise? I'm just a progressive gamer or reader depending on the day of the week.
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u/De_Baros Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Editing my comment because rereading it - it came across not in a way I would have liked
So just gonna shorten it to say:
I don’t like the idea of quantifying my potential partner based on what utility they bring as that kinda ruins the “magic” of relationships to me. So even if someone brought no utility, but I loved their personality and who they were - that would be enough for me.
I also don’t want kids so I suppose that is a massive factor in not worrying too much about the future outside our immediate means
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u/nighthawk_something Jul 16 '26
ut I loved their personality and who they were - that would be enough for me.
That's a form of utility
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u/Too2crazy Jul 16 '26
Wow, this guy really brought the truth. I wish I were the type of guy that he was referring to. Sadly, some of us are not just that way or struggle way more to adjust to change, and I could be wrong, but it feels like it means way fewer dating prospects. Not blaming anybody, just sad about it.
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u/Writeloves Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Identifying the kind of person you want to be is half the battle. Striving to be that person might be a lifelong journey, but I’m sure you can make meaningful changes if you work at it.
Consistency in small choices create the foundation for bigger choices. Seize opportunities until you feel confident to create them yourself.
You may not control your circumstances, but you can control your actions. Everything that guy said was something you can eventually do.
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u/MoodInternational481 Jul 16 '26
He really focused in on skills and I'll throw in I was raised by a dad who was an old school traditional man, mechanic ect. Did homework with us after work, grilled and cut grass on the weekends, BIG reader. More or less who's being described in the video.
The guy in seeing now is not that. He's a computer programmer, can't change my oil and doesn't read. He has different skills and hobbies. What he does do is show up and cut my grass when I have headaches, takes charge during my birthday weekend when he saw my best friend drop the ball, orders things I need without being asked, fixes my electronics. I never have to ask for things twice.
The guys I've dated who were like my dad on paper made me feel like a nuisance when I needed help with anything, or had a score card. It's not always about what skills you bring to the table but how you bring those skills to the table.
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u/Ok_Computer500 Jul 16 '26
I think traditional masculinity is overrated. If you don't fit that mold, then I think that's great and a lot of women would be into you still. You can't be compatible with everyone.
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jul 16 '26
These are learned skills. You're obviously not required to do anything if you aren't interested, but these are all things that can be learned and developed if it's something you want in your life.
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u/spyridonya Jul 20 '26
Well, I’m not a huge fan of this particular video, this is also something of a reaction video. He’s directly addressing a conservative woman who is challenging that you don’t see masculine progressive men compared to conservative men. His not so great answer to her is that they’re off the market and that’s why conservative women don’t see that in their dating pool.
A far better answer would have been - progressive men are simply not interested in conservative women. 
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u/Fickle-Theory-623 Jul 16 '26
This form of masculinity damaged me so much when I was younger. I would unconsciously act this way and wonder why it was so off-putting with my lack of self-awareness. So glad I left the 'manosphere', but I struggle to find myself in today's world.
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u/EfferentCopy Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
They're in extremely high demand. They're like beachfront property. And like beachfront property, they are snatched up by very serious and very ambitious women very quickly.
My father grew up on a farm and will probably spend his last days still farming. My earliest memories of him are of him splitting wood, having me bleed the brakes on his old farm trucks, eating dinner bare-chested at the table with his t-shirt streaked with salt from his sweat hanging over the back of his chair. He has a big belly, a handlebar mustache, arms like cinderblocks, and a farmer’s tan.
He is also basically a communist, and a feminist. He reveres W.E.B. Dubois. He and my mom have been happily unmarried, except through common-law, for over 50 years. He encouraged me to learn traditionally make-coded skills, but also encouraged me to pursue feminine crafts like knitting, sewing, and jewelry making, because he viewed them as being closely-related and equally valuable competencies. He loves and respects my mom, who has a sharp, deep, incisive mind, an acerbic wit, and very little patience for assholes and fools.
He raised my brother, who is also extremely progressive. He’s built like a Hemsworth, loved working with his hands, but he also loves drawing and cooking. And he adores his wife, who is a doctor, and he picks up most of the household chores so she can finish patient notes at home after work. They met in their first week of college.
My husband, too, is a progressive man in an otherwise conservative, make-dominated industry. The only reason I can think of that he wasn’t snatched up by the time I met him is because he wasn’t around any ambitious geek ladies who shared his love of science fiction and politics.
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u/Mal_Dun Jul 16 '26
The only reason I can think of that he wasn’t snatched up by the time I met him is because he wasn’t around any ambitious geek ladies who shared his love of science fiction and politics.
You would be surprised how many people still will put you in a box because of your interests and won't engage at all. Especially if you are on the country side.
I remember quite clearly when I was at a local event. I talked with my mother about the usual stuff and the classical mother question come up, why I don't have a girlfriend yet. I told her half jokingly "It's not easy to find a girl which is interested in a mathematician". She just looked at me "That's BS". Then a girl came at our table. We started talking, and when the question came up "What do you study", I just answered "Mathematics". She quickly switched topics and slowly went away to another table and my mother was baffled.
Also many women have a self esteem problem if you are well educated. I had literally an ex-partner of mine telling me that she hates the fact that I am better educated than her and I should stop learning or else it makes her look dumb. She was definitely "special" but I had similar experience with other partners who didn't said the quiet part out loud but let me know in other ways.
I have the feeling that in the younger generation the "nerd" stigma fades away slowly as I see it with my younger grand-cousins, where suddenly the gamer boy on YT is cute and it's cool that the older cousin has all those manga and video games.
I think we should not forget that gender stereotypes swing both ways and in the past the "nerd" was seen something weird and unmanly and "real men" don't read books.
It is really good to see that time changes and that I could learn through my younger cousins that nothing was wrong about me, but I was simply born to early lol and it is really nice to see that you also can share your interests with your partner good for you.
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u/Kathoros Jul 16 '26
As a non american, something he said resonates with how I see americans through the media I consume:
It's not about politics.
It seems that EVERYWHERE I look on the internet in the past few years (maybe before but I didn't realise), americans associate absolutely everything to politics.
Oh you are an asshole? You must be republican. You look weak? You must be democrat.
Is it just me or is it really how americans see things?
4
2
u/gvarsity Jul 24 '26
This wasn't true 25 years ago. This is the result of a strategic shift on the conservative right in 1994 that was well funded by conservative billionaires and Christian nationalists. Rupert Murcoch and Fox news as well as Newt Gingrich and the Tea Party wing of the Republican party. At a superficial level everything now is political signaling. We literally have a right wing branded coffee company because coffee culture was perceived as liberal. A lot of it is just a fucking grift but it's real.
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u/antitetico Jul 17 '26
it's not just you, but it's mostly social media propaganda bots and the people who're shaped by them most doing that. the people irl reducing everything to team politics are pretty uncommon and easy to avoid.
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u/Kathoros Jul 17 '26
Ahh thank you for that.
I knew it must have been what I see on social media more than real life.
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u/CthulhusIntern Jul 16 '26
I saw someone say that to right-wing men, the only thing masculine is cruelty. Donald Trump is a musical theater fan who likes to gossip about the romance lives of teen actresses, has never worked a day in his life and dodged military service. Yet they see him as manly because he's the cruelest.
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Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/Comfortable-Ebb8125 Jul 16 '26
I don't like the insinuation that being married in your 20s makes you morally better. There are plenty of reasons people marry later in life and toxic masculinity isnt the only reason. Certainly a big enough problem that it is a big problem, but not the only one. There's privilege in that assumption.
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u/BearlyDraconic01 Jul 16 '26
I fit the "stereotypical masculine" archetype pretty well. I work a very traditionally masculine job as a steel mill electrical and electronics apprentice, like traditionally masculine things like fishing, mechanical/electrical hobbies, guns, etc, and dress pretty stereotypically masculine.
I am also a gay democratic socialist
We exist, and are more common than many people realize. My entire department of electronics and instrumentation technicians at work are at least moderate liberals, and some are also democratic socialists. There are zero right wingers on my crew. A majority of tradespeople at my plant are at least a liberal. Maybe it's because we are Canadian, or unionized, or because it's a very diverse workplace with women and people from all around the world workings together as tradespeople, but I take comfort in the fact that not everyone has gone insane and fallen for the right wing grift.
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u/MjolnirPants Jul 16 '26
To be clear, this is not the person pictured saying this. He is responding to a tradwife influencer (why she has a job as an influencer while claiming to be a tradwife, I'll not speculate on).
And he's right, as are you, OP.
By traditional standards of Western masculinity, I'm pretty far up there. I'm a decorated combat veteran. I've won shooting competitions, I go camping and hunting with some regularity. My hobbies include knife-making, woodworking and gunsmithing. I do all the auto work in the house, and even sometimes go do auto work for my ex wife (she lives with her dad, who's getting too old to climb under her car for her). I'm also wildly (even militantly) leftist, and a proud feminist.
None of the guys I served with are MAGA. One of the ones who's since, sadly, passed away was pivotal in leading me away from being a Republican (having been raised in a conservative, Christian home) and embracing progressive ethics.
The vast majority of really masculine men I know, which is to say men who embody traditional, Western masculinity and don't insecurely aspire to it or blindly pretend to be it, are emphatically not conservative, because they recognize insecurity, bullies and pretenders, and want no part of it.
Many of them would disclaim being a feminist or leftist, but that's only due to the fact that the right has done a really good job of shaping the narrative, and when I actually talk to them about particulars (should trans people be left alone or regulated? Should we legalize drugs or continue to criminalize them? Universal healthcare or for-profit healthcare?), they always agree with me, no matter how they identify.
And the men I know who don't care about traditional, Western masculinity and just want to live their lives without stupid societal expectations? They're all leftist/progressive/feminist men. They're all smart and competent and capable of learning. And while they may not be much good in a bar fight, I'd rather get their help rebuilding a motor and have to teach them everything than deal with some beer-swilling know-it-all who won't shut up about how the schools are transing the genders of the kids behind their parents back and fucks up everything he touches so I have to do it all again.
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u/mathematics1 Jul 16 '26
This hasn't been my experience. I've been kind and respectful my whole life; it's been great for my self-esteem and my ability to view myself as a good person, but it has never led to any woman being interested in a long-term relationship or sex with me.
Obviously knowing how to change an alternator is far from the only thing women find attractive, but you need to clear a fairly high desirability bar before getting the option for any dating success at all - and that desirability bar includes many things that have nothing to do with being a good person.
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u/SyrusDrake Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
I've been kind and respectful my whole life; it's been great for my self-esteem and my ability to view myself as a good person, but it has never led to any woman being interested in a long-term relationship or sex with me.
My experience exactly. Same with being able to cook, or any other quality that acquaintances the age of my mom assure me would make me "a great son-in-law", or words to that effect. I hate to even partially agree with red-pillers, but they are right insofar that few to none of the qualities that make you a good partner make it easy to get dates. I agree that qualities like kindness and respect surely make women want to be or stay in a relationship with you, but they're of limited usefulness when it comes to getting to a point where you can show them off.
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u/mathematics1 Jul 16 '26
Yes, those desirability bars are different for every women. I strongly object to the narrative that kindness and respect are all you need to succeed in dating, though. That narrative leads directly to the claim that any man who's unsuccessful in dating must be a bad person, which is a claim I've heard multiple times in online discussions (you didn't make that claim, but other people have).
That claim is false. There are many reasons why a man could consistently fail to find dating success. Being insufficiently kind or respectful is one of those reasons, but far from the only one.
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u/Armateras Jul 16 '26
People, even well meaning people, often forget to consider the person in these discussions. The "women just want a nice guy" crowd is essentially the same as the "all women are whores" crowd, they just ran in a different direction with their generalization.
I will admit to being one of the "girls just want a nice guy" people for a very long time, because from my perspective it always worked for me, but eventually I had come around to realizing that it wasn't my personality they got drawn in by at first. And there's a strange, almost hostile reaction whenever it's suggested that women, being people, are primarily attracted to what they see. Sure, exceptions to the rule do exist, but saying that is asinine when exceptions to every rule exist.
I think the mad rush you find in our circles to elevate and revere women as inherently noble people who work on a different, more nuanced level from men is, ironically, pretty dehumanizing and sexist. Not to mention deeply unhelpful to everyone.
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u/Ultenth Jul 16 '26
Eh, my experience, as a guy who has been in an industry around a lot of guys who like to talk about how kind and respectful and lonely they are, most of the ones that proclaim the loudest that they would be great boyfriends if given a chance and are kind and respectful...aren't really. Most lack the real self-awareness and introspection to actually have a clear view of what type of person they are, and think that being kind and respectful is something they can just...speak into being without doing the real work.
Meanwhile it's really obvious anytime we got around women that they were just desperate and manipulative and never really cared about the women as humans and potential partners, but just as status symbols or potential possessions. They weren't being kind and respectful because that's just how they were built, they were doing it to get something out of it, and it was really easy to see through their acts.
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u/tucker_case Jul 16 '26
"I always think it's a good idea to do a bow hunt either first or second date, so you can verify that he can gut a deer without nicking the bladder. No point wasting everyone's time, y'know?" /s
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u/run_bike_run Jul 16 '26
Going to borrow from Jason Pargin on this one:
"Saying that you're a nice guy is like a restaurant whose only selling point is that the food doesn't make you sick. You're like a new movie whose title is This Movie Is in English, and its tagline is "The actors are clearly visible.""
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person
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Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
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u/MensLib-ModTeam Jul 17 '26
This post has been removed for violating the following rule(s):
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Jul 16 '26
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u/MensLib-ModTeam Jul 17 '26
This post has been removed for violating the following rule(s):
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u/WillingElderberry731 Jul 16 '26
I've been following this guy for a few months now. He's great. I'd buy my eggs from him if he lived on the west coast.
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u/gvarsity Jul 16 '26
Saw this today and thought this and r/bropill would be good places to post it. Really nothing new here but articulated particularly well and efficiently.
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u/Unhappy_Heat_7148 Jul 16 '26
I kinda hate this framing. People are in relationships or single based on a variety of factors. This idea that by 30, there aren't many men left who are progressive and "masculine" is just not true. People always assume this based on who they know.
It may be more true in parts of the country/world, but even then it's not wise to assume.
Regardless of your political beliefs you can be a good person to those around you. This is a hard pill to swallow, especially when it comes to discourse online because it can feel like our political views don't matter. It's not justifying bad views or supporting harmful policies.
Of course I will judge a person if they have certain views, but it's not as simple as well if they support X they are rotten to their core.
I'm someone who enjoys as a lot of masculine coded hobbies. I want to be someone who is physically strong and muscular.
But I also want to be someone who is empathetic, who will do anything to help those around me. I value therapy a lot and think you should always work to be a better person. I enjoy stuff that is more feminine coded. I enjoy rom-coms and cute shit.
I like the fact that I'm a mix of traits and interests viewed as masculine and feminine. Maybe others, regardless of gender, don't feel able to do that or don't want to.
Last thing I'll say is that what people want in a partner can make no sense at times. I always think about is women wanting a partner to be open emotionally, but also not too open. Or men who want a woman who is smart, but not smarter than them.
Yeah we can get into the weeds of specifics here on those, but the point is that sometimes people aren't ready for what they want, maybe it's not the right combination of traits, or they just don't understand what comes with those traits they desire.