HeelInTheOzarks
Esteemed Member
- Messages
- 695
I was just listening to a podcast about incel culture the other day in the middle of a 17 hour cross country drive.
I had not thought deeply about how marriage (or just partner-choosing) has radically changed since women have been in the workforce. The point was made that as few as 50 years ago, pretty much any man was going to make more money than any woman and therefore the pool of potential husbands that would economically improve a woman’s life was huge. These days this narrows considerably as people tend to marry within their socioeconomic bracket and a successful career woman is not going to probably be interested in some loser sitting around watching Andrew Tate videos and complaining that the world is unfair instead of doing something for himself.
But that’s only the relationship side…you also have to take into account that the further we move away from an economy that has lots of jobs in manual labor, factory work, agriculture, or trades that require short term education…the less opportunity for a male to put no effort into school but make it based on a willingness to work and therefore support himself and a family.
Women and girls have always had to put so much more into education in order to make it in the workplace and society has not adjusted to this yet. As our economy becomes even more focused on service and includes even more automation, it will get worse before it gets better.
I also saw a special report on MSNBC where Alex Wagner went to a union hall in Pennsylvania and talked to the workers there about the election. The older guys were all Harris supporters but the 20somethings were all either Trump or “undecided” but leaning Trump. They all parroted talking points about the southern border but had no idea how any policies were helping their jobs directly. But they’re blue collar guys in a country where blue collar jobs are drying up, so I’m not surprised. Easy to blame immigrants for stopping them from living the American dream rather than adjust to what the job market really is looking for.
I continue to think we have to be creative as a country in what our kids can do with a high school education. Even expecting everyone to do community college or post k12 training is a pipe dream. We need opportunities for people to make a decent living and based on how people currently parent and what society pushes the genders toward academically, the majority of those non-college people are going to be men.
I had not thought deeply about how marriage (or just partner-choosing) has radically changed since women have been in the workforce. The point was made that as few as 50 years ago, pretty much any man was going to make more money than any woman and therefore the pool of potential husbands that would economically improve a woman’s life was huge. These days this narrows considerably as people tend to marry within their socioeconomic bracket and a successful career woman is not going to probably be interested in some loser sitting around watching Andrew Tate videos and complaining that the world is unfair instead of doing something for himself.
But that’s only the relationship side…you also have to take into account that the further we move away from an economy that has lots of jobs in manual labor, factory work, agriculture, or trades that require short term education…the less opportunity for a male to put no effort into school but make it based on a willingness to work and therefore support himself and a family.
Women and girls have always had to put so much more into education in order to make it in the workplace and society has not adjusted to this yet. As our economy becomes even more focused on service and includes even more automation, it will get worse before it gets better.
I also saw a special report on MSNBC where Alex Wagner went to a union hall in Pennsylvania and talked to the workers there about the election. The older guys were all Harris supporters but the 20somethings were all either Trump or “undecided” but leaning Trump. They all parroted talking points about the southern border but had no idea how any policies were helping their jobs directly. But they’re blue collar guys in a country where blue collar jobs are drying up, so I’m not surprised. Easy to blame immigrants for stopping them from living the American dream rather than adjust to what the job market really is looking for.
I continue to think we have to be creative as a country in what our kids can do with a high school education. Even expecting everyone to do community college or post k12 training is a pipe dream. We need opportunities for people to make a decent living and based on how people currently parent and what society pushes the genders toward academically, the majority of those non-college people are going to be men.
