Being a Man in the 21st Century (Part 2) | Hacker News Reader

Being a Man in the 21st Century (Part 2)

lifehack.org

9 pointsbhousel17 comments

Basically, being a man in the 21st century, according to this author, is basically not "being a man" at all. The entire article applies to women as well. It's just being "yourself", with no guidelines laid on you based on your gender.

I am not expressing agreement or disagreement; I just think the article beat around the bush and (probably not deliberately) went to great lengths to avoid the very conclusion it is drawing, which is that being a man has no particular meaning anymore, according to the author.

"being a man has no particular meaning anymore"

And unfortunately, men are also not needed much anymore. I read somewhere recently that people are descendants of many more women than men (meaning women have children more often than men - few men are fathers).

Women not needing the money of their spouses - will they really just be attracted to a wider variety of men? Another thing I read recently is that women are becoming more likely to care for physical attractiveness now. Good for them, but I can't really see the benefit for men gained from that.

Also what tires me is the assumption that women where held down by barriers we erected. I think in "former times" it simply wasn't possible to survive alone, and the traditional roles where one successful approach to managing life. Women were supposed to do the household chores because men were working at their jobs earning the money.

What really freed women therefore was not the destruction of barriers. It was the invention of dish washers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines and frozen food.

According to genetic research, 80% of women reproduce, but only 40% of men reproduce.

I'm assuming that those percents are historic, not current.

In the past, men were far more likely to die in war than today. I'm curious what that would mean in terms of evolutionary biology. Would Darwinism suggest that we self-selected a more peaceful human race by breeding men who stayed home, or a more aggressive human race by breeding men who were more successful at fighting wars and then returning?

I realize that evolution works over extremely long time periods and we've been fighting wars regularly for our entire recorded history, but only recently has technology really started to remove humans from the business of fighting.

"Would Darwinism suggest that we self-selected a more peaceful human race by breeding men who stayed home, or a more aggressive human race by breeding men who were more successful at fighting wars and then returning?"

I doubt either. Which men stayed home, historically? Pacifists? The sick? The old? Members of the wrong economic class or religion? Probably the answers vary widely from war to war and place to place.

And again, what traits helped you survive a war? Physical strength? Stamina? Keen eyesight? A healthy sense of fear? Being able to run quickly away? Being too wimpy to be put on the front lines? Being smart enough to become an officer? Again, it probably varied a lot.

I think it just shows that it is women who decide who reproduces. It is probably easy to find some sperms somewhere (these days there are also sperm banks), but it is hard to find a willing womb. Hence only the top fraction of men gets to reproduce (with several women), because women can just stick to the top fraction of men for reproduction.

Tell that to the woman who is desperate for a mate.

Virtually any woman (regardless of all but the most extreme physical/personality/etc. deficiencies) can find numerous mates at any time, she just has to wander into the nearest nightclub, bar, mall, etc. Of course, most of these men aren't going to meet her standards in one way or another but, the point is, on a biological level reproduction is not a challenge for women...sperm is not a scarce resource. This is true both historically (dating back to caveman days) and in present times.

The difficulty is that women usually aren't just looking to reproduce, they're looking for someone to support them and their potential children, thus the high level of selectivity.

Desperate for someone to mate with, or desperate for someone to pay the child support? The former would be easy, but I suspect most women who are feeling lonely are really looking for the child support aspect.

As the blogger told us, it is increasingly becoming a non-issue as women are better able to earn money themselves.

While it's true that procuring material/financial support from a man isn't the necessity it used to be for women, I would suggest they are still hard-wired, to an extent, as well as socially conditioned to be attracted to men with available resources (also consider the increasingly popular belief that an acceptable lifestyle requires two incomes.) Keep in mind, too, that emotional support is likely considered by women more important than it used to be. They are less likely today to be satisfied with a man who just goes to work everyday and is then distant and uninvolved in domestic life. This is another reason for women to be selective of their mate for what he can provide (rather than just who he is,) despite their opportunity to be financially self-sufficient.

I think since women can afford to let men work for them (their "service" to reproduction is more expensive, so they can ask a higher price), many will just choose to not work and let the men pay instead.

Not everybody LIKES to work.

Not that I disbelieve you or find your post implausible, but do you have a source on that?

http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

EXCERPT:

What percent of our ancestors were women?

It’s not a trick question, and it’s not 50%. True, about half the people who ever lived were women, but that’s not the question. We’re asking about all the people who ever lived who have a descendant living today. Or, put another way, yes, every baby has both a mother and a father, but some of those parents had multiple children.

Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.

I think this difference is the single most underappreciated fact about gender. To get that kind of difference, you had to have something like, throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced.

Thinking about it again, that last statement seems inaccurate: since the world's population is constantly growing (exponentially, I presume), differences in later generations would have a much higher effect than ones in early generations.

If I am not mistaken, that would also refute the argument that the differences would mostly be due to different circumstances in ancient times.

I'm genetically 50% female. After all, my mother was female ;)

^ It's a joke, OK? Don't take it so seriously.

fnid described it better what I meant. It is about the diversity of men and women in your ancestry.

The unstated (but unavoidable) conclusion of the article is that we are all now non-gendered, generic "individuals." Despite his best efforts at suggesting otherwise, what he's describing is not a new definition of masculinity, but the end of it. By definition, if a word or idea can mean anything at all then it really means nothing.

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