Over on the Men’s Rights Subreddit, PacmanWasALangolier is taking concern trolling to a whole new level. Apparently, according to some unspecified research, the women of today have gotten picky — tragically picky — about the men they date.
It turns out that a lot of women aren’t interested in dating just any dude out there! They cruelly, selfishly, wantonly insist on choosing whom they date and whom they don’t.
The horror!
Mr. Pacman is concerned, “honestly concerned,” for this can only end in disaster, not just for men but for those poor misguided women themselves. And possibly civilization itself.
To drop the sarcasm for a moment, let’s look at his “evidence.” First, that bit about how, historically, only 40% of men have passed on their genes. This figure comes from a paper by psychologist Roy Baumeister that’s a favorite amongst the Men’s Rights crowd, and the claim seems to be true — at least if you’re talking about the whole span of human existence.
Does this prove that women have always looked down their noses at the majority of men, refusing to have sex with decent average Joes in favor of riding that old “alpha asshole cock carousel,” as manosphere assholes so delightfully put it?
Well, not exactly. It merely suggests that in the past, more powerful men had sex with more women than the poor and subjugated, and thus were far more likely to pass on their genes. (Or at least that, however many partners they had, their babies were more likely to survive to produce babies of their own.) The figure tells us very little about the actual preferences of women, because many times the choice about who had sex with whom was made by men. Powerful men collected women into harems; male soldiers routinely raped women on the defeated side; in patriarchal cultures, fathers decided whom their daughters would marry. And so on.
Mr Pacman might also be referring to an interesting post on the OKCupid blog that revealed some interesting data on how the dating site’s (straight and bi) men and women rated the attractiveness of members of the opposite sex. But (if that is indeed what he’s referring to) he’s leaving out half of the equation, and thus totally missing the point.
Yes, it’s true that women on the site rated roughly 80% of the men on the site as “below average,” while men were much more “charitable” in their choices, with “a woman … as likely to be considered extremely ugly as extremely beautiful, [while] the majority of women have been rated about “medium.”
But Mr. Pacman has left out the most interesting part of the findings. Even though men on the site were charitable in how they rated women, with their assessments of female attractiveness falling roughly along a normal bell curve, they were more selective — much more selective — in whom they contacted. As the OKCupid blogger, Christian Rudder, puts it, “when it comes down to actually choosing targets, men choose the modelesque.” Women at the top of the bell curve in terms of attractiveness (at least as rated by site members) get
nearly 5 times as many messages as a typical woman and 28 times as many messages as a woman at the low end of our curve. Site-wide, two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the absolute best-rated females, while plenty of potentially charming, even cute, girls go unwritten.
For women, the results are strikingly different. While they tended to be pretty selective when it came to rating men on their looks, in practice they were far more open to dating men they considered average or below average in looks. As Rudder notes,
women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable. … [T]he average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.
Of course, the data here might be skewed by another factor that the blogger doesn’t address: on OKCupid, when someone rates someone else highly, and that someone else has also rated them highly, the site sends out a message informing both of them of a possible match. Women rating particular men as unattractive may not actually think of them as unattractive, but may be simply trying to avoid getting a lot of spammy messages from guys whose profiles they may not have looked at in detail.
So, yeah, once again, the real world is a lot more complicated, and much more interesting, than the world inside the head of the typical MRA.
Also, are women all rating the same 80% of guys less good-looking than average? I probably wouldn’t date 80% of dudes (actually, I probably wouldn’t date 99% of people), but that doesn’t mean that other people don’t want to date the 99% of people I don’t want to date. And it seems like a more sensible explanation for the lopsided messaging-rating thing.
In the case of the OKCupid data, he’s talking about attractiveness as rated by site members as a whole.
This is obviously a giant issue when it comes to the topic in general, and part of the problem is that the evo psych people tend not to take into account the wide variances amongst individuals. Even if people, on average, find a particular person attractive; even if on average, people find, say, symmetry or a particular waist to hip ratio or whatever attractive, there are plenty of people out there who don’t.
Well, not site members as a whole, but averages for (straight or bi) men and women.
That “feminism is going to leave generations of women out in the cold for the first time in history” codology … I seem to recall that one of the reasons English middle and working class women’s migration was strongly encouraged in the 19th century was because there were more women than men in the country and there was concern (or a bit of a panic on, whichever) about them having little chance of marrying. And Victorian England was hardly a bastion of feminism.
The whole ‘too choosy’ line is sooo familiar, and not just from whiny MRAs. I’ve had a lifetime of it. I never wanted anyone but Mr Kitteh and we didn’t get together until a few years ago. I’ve had the implicit “but you should be married and breeding, you MUST want to have BAYBEEEEES, and you’re denying some poor man access to your vagina and nonexistent domestic skills” message from quite a few people – mostly older women, actually.
Blech. Even if I’d never got together with Mr Kitteh, there is nobody, nobody at all, else I’d want to date. That’s not a reflection on them, except for the “you’re not him” part of it. It’s simply that I’m not interested, and that never seems an acceptable reason for women to offer about anything, whether we’re talking dating some people but not others, or not dating at all, or anything at all, come to think of it.
Instead of complaining how they can’t get laid, they ought to take a shower, get a decent hair cut and wear nice clothes. But nooo, they post a picture of themselves next to their trucks, sporting a mullet. Really?
Same ol thing, they want super models without having to make any effort themselves.
What excellent timing, given the conversation in the other thread. The context I kept banging on about there? This is that context.
Also, the whole sky-is-falling thing that MRAs keep doing is getting funnier every time. They’re trying so hard to convince women that if we don’t get back into the kitchen soon we’ll be DOOMED, as if just repeating it often enough will convince us that it’s true.
I for one would rather be doomed than live the way MRAs want me to.
Cassandra, I was just about to say the same thing! I wonder if a lurker was reading our thread, and then shouted “Oh, no, the feminists think women should have STANDARDS for who sees them naked! I must run and tell my brethren posthaste so we may stop this apocalypse of common sense!”
@ Fitzy
Well, I expect this kind of thing from MRAs, it’s just when I find myself having to have the same conversation with other feminists that I start craving a drink.
@kittehs
The MRA plan for womanity could pretty much be summed up as “doomed” anyway.
@CassandraSays – I understand. The conversation was a real eye-opener for me, though; it’s made me think about some personal issues that I’ve never considered before. But I do agree that the whole “better check yourself, lady” is used mostly as a more palatable stand-in for “better check your sexual agency at the door, girl.”
I’m not too sure it shows that, even. It only proves that their babies survived to pass on their genes.
You are of course right, claire. Will revise the post.
Hey, first time posting on the site. Just… I never even HEARD of these guys until recently. MRAs I mean. It took a bit of perusal through the backlog of the blog to see that these guys are serious and not a few trolls from say, 4chan or ED.
That said, let’s assume that the main ‘harm women will suffer’ in the guy’s post is accurate for argument’s sake. In this case… well… who cares if it’ll “leave them out in the cold” if that’s a risk they’re willing to take? I mean, if you’re willing to pay the price for a certain belief with the understanding that’s a price you’ll need to cough up… what’s the problem? I mean, its obvious this is just their excuse, instead of the main point of ‘I can’t stick my dick in something as easily as I want’, since they feel the need to try and hide this and justify it to one level or another. Usually at least, if most of the coverage of the blog is anything to go by.
One thing I have never understood about this is that I find it difficult to do anything sexual with people I don’t like much or am not attracted to. Even my friends who are more into sex than me find the same thing. I can sort of imagine living with and financially supporting someone I don’t like that much (a Charlotte Lucas type arrangement) but having sex with them sounds unbearable. Given how much advice there is for women to compromise I assume a lot of people do it but I have no idea how.
As I have gotten older and moved to a place where most people my age are married I know I have to chose between someone I don’t want to be with or being single. I think about it a lot and can’t help thinking being single is the best option. Spending the rest of your life with someone who you don’t like being around sounds horrible. I can see why people compromise on that though. the idea that you get sick and nobody cares or helps is scary. I often wish I had more to recommend me so I could date someone I found fun and interesting. I just don’t get how people compromise and don’t go mad from trying to be around someone they wish they weren’t though. From what I hear it is the standard and I wish I knew how people coped. I am probably just too selfish.
Not selfish at all, Pear_tree.
And the thought of sex with Mr Collins is just too horrible …
No, you’re not. The fact that society keeps trying to tell you that you are is not OK.
I repeat this story every time dating standards are under discussion, because it always bears repeating. On a Pandagon thread way back when, people were discussing dating sites and several people were commiserating over their problems with posting personal ads on craigslist. One woman finally investigated why her ad kept getting removed, and it turned out it was getting flagged by other craigslist users, and craigslist policy at the time was just to delete anything that was flagged and call it a day.
They put their heads together and figured out that there is probably a small subset of guys who will literally flag as inappropriate the personal ads of women who weren’t giving them boners. This left the W4M site a barren wasteland of porn spam ads, but at least the women in those ads were 38-24-36. You have to look a lot harder to find a woman on a dating site who will actively sabotage the ads of men that don’t float her boat. That woman must exist, everything is possible, but there aren’t enough of them dedicated enough to clean up the M4W page, like there are enough men in most towns to decimate the W4M pages.
The annals of online dating author says the same thing – women creepers are under-represented. (S)he is always thrilled to post crazy shit from awful women, it’s just the crazy ones aren’t putting it out there in the same quanitities as their male counterparts.
It really is a pain in the ass the way they always choose JIF. There ARE other peanut butters, choosy bitches.
Bloody brilliant, isn’t it. “I don’t find you give me an instant hard-on, therefore you aren’t allowed to try dating anyone at all, or even be visible!”
The self-same men doubtless complain about being treated like betas when the Hot Babes (gods I hate that term) aren’t lining up to date them.
Being single is DEFINITELY the best option.
Even if you’re single, somebody cares and will help if you have friends.
Not every relationship is a compromise, or putting up with someone you don’t like/aren’t attracted to just so that you’re not alone. It’s not selfish AT ALL to want to be with someone you like, find attractive and interesting, and who likes you and finds you attractive and interesting.
Don’t panic. You don’t have a Best Before date. Just go about your life, doing what you enjoy, and meet other people who enjoy doing what you enjoy doing.
You’ll develop a group of friends you find interesting, and you’ll do enjoyable stuff together. You may find one of those friends attractive, and you’ll already have something to talk about if you ask him or her out.
Being in a relationship is NOT better than being single if you have to suppress your personality (and gag reflex) in order to be in the relationship.
Whenever I see this “feminism is the end of the world” shtick; I first start mentally flogging myself for having believed it naught but a couple of years ago and then I wonder just how someone can hold that belief. I mean it’s like two steps away from some of the non-feminist stuff that owly tosses around.
Nah, man, we all believed stupid shit at one point (and many of us still do, in a variety of topics). Coming to disbelieve it is part of growing up and learning things. The fact that you no longer believe means you’re way ahead of the pack of morons who do, and it means that you’re a decent human being with a functioning brain.
Pear Tree, I have a similar situation, and I don’t think you’re unreasonable. Remember that just because you settle for someone, it doesn’t mean they’ll actually step up if you really needed them. Compromising at the level you’re contemplating is no guarantee of support or even security later so don’t let that fear sway you into going against your conscience.
@Unimaginative
I kind of know that, I think the mental flogging is a part of what I am lately strongly suspecting to be major depressive disorder.
Exactly. Those same types of guys are such hypocrites. They’ll complain if women reject men for not being attractive, but then turn around and demand a girlfriend that looks like Megan Fox. If they want women to settle, then they should settle, too.
LOL, the truck and mullet would not have been deal breakers for me way back when I used to date. I know it’s a hard haircut to pull off, but it can be done. One example of a good mullet was Uncle Jesse’s on Full House.