Basically, in order for relationships and I guess society to improve, should men improve first, or should women?
And now here's the long explanation. It's no secret that the divorce rate has increased in the past decades. It's also no secret that single parenthood - especially single motherhood- households have increased substantially. We are now seeing its (detrimental) affects on kids and society - higher rates of depression, aggression, suicide, poor grades and disciplinary issues, dropping out of school, unemployment, poverty, drug and substance usage and addiction, promiscuity, teen pregnancy, criminal behavior and incarceration, etc.
We see constantly people asking why relationships are failing, where society is heading as the nuclear family is being worn away if we continue this trend. Women wonder where are all the good men? Men wonder, especially in the west, are there much "marriage" material women left? How to attract such mates? I've heard many women say what's the point of being a good woman if they still get cheated on. And I've heard men say what's the point of being a good man if women aren't attracted to good men. Common advice is you need to be a good woman to attract a good man, and vice versa. But in society, which gender needs to improve first. It's kind of a chicken vs egg, which comes first?
TLDR: So my question is, in order for relationships to be fixed in society (reduce divorce rate, reduce single parenthood, etc), who needs to improve first? Men? Women? Both? Neither? What is a "good man/woman"? Please no trolls, misogyny or misandry.
Tricky. I might piss off both sexes expressing my blunt opinion here, but I voted "women" and I need to explain that carefully.
It's because I think men don't discriminate very well in terms of their sexual partners. If you offered single men, "free pussy, no strings attached", I think many are going to jump on that opportunity without second thought, and I think that might have been the case throughout all of human evolution.
Meanwhile if you offered women, "free dick, no strings attached", far more might be able to resist such an opportunity. Women seem, on average, more capable of selecting more wisely here and with something a bit more long-term in mind.
And that's the problem I see with the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution wasn't a revolution for men, it was a revolution for women to allow them to openly engage and be as sexual as they want to be. Yet it arguably ultimately benefited men skilled in attracting the opposite sex more than anything else while leaving so many women disappointed who wanted something more than just fooling around sexually. Afterwards you no longer had men quite as eager to put a ring on it, since they didn't need to in order to find sex anymore. The skilled ones are now talking about "pussy buffets", and benefit so much from it not in terms of finding love and commitment and marriage, but in terms of adding notches to their bed post.
So I think female behavior has a more significant impact in a free society on shaping male behavior than anything else, even though it takes two to tango.
So I think if we want men to be better in general, whether that means more chivalrous, more loyal, more interested in commitment, etc, then I see changes to female behavior of a kind that rewards such male behavior as the brighter hope of that happening. If there are a lot of women around rewarding guys who are unfaithful, lack loyalty, and not interested in commitment, then you'll tend to find a whole lot more of those types of guys.
In this respect, yes, I look at history and I feel like women have the power here. I see men as kind of sillier creatures when it comes to sex and courtship, just kind of trying whatever they can to get some. If that means being a chivalrous gentleman in the middle ages who devotes himself entirely to a lady, that's what he becomes. If that means being a player who deceives and manipulates women into the bedroom to get some, that's what he becomes. I see the ultimate power of influence here as coming from what women favor.
And back then it isn't like men were great. Concubines, infidelity, physical abuse as "punishment/discipline", etc. still happened. It's just women couldn't escape it because they weren't legally allowed
Or perhaps merely "gentleman" behavior if we fast forward a bit in time, as that lingers today. The end of the era of gentleman was the sexual revolution as I saw it, as it no longer becomes rewarding for a man to conduct himself that way from a sexual perspective if women are not favoring that sort of behavior in men or even being insulted by it. The general kind of male is just kind of pragmatic in this regard to adopting whatever behavior is necessary to achieve his interests.
There's two sides to this history as I see it. There is certainly the side of women lacking rights, and I imagine a number who suffered as a result of it, but there was also the side that people weren't hooking up with "friends with benefits" being a common term, and the mere idea of a "pussy buffet" would have probably been considered so vulgar, so unlady-like, so unbecoming of a gentleman to participate in, etc.
The side I'm criticizing is not laws, but values and cultural ideas, and what women have come to favor over time (even if they were largely helpless in what they favored, the mere fact that they did often inspired men to adopt the characteristics that were fashionable among women).
There's no forced marriage in the 1950s US to my knowledge. Even Amelia Earhart in the early 19th century chose her husband freely and somewhat set the stage of their marriage (and her parents divorced back then).
There was certainly some of that going further back. Perhaps another way to put it is that you have two primary forces influencing men's behavior in the context of romance, sexuality, and relationships:
1) Other men (competition). 2) Women (goal)
And if we put aside interpretations of history, then #2 does become very influential in even setting the stage of what men are competing over (wealth, nice physiques, charm, whatever women favor). In a free society at least where women have the exclusive choice of their mates, then they ultimately set the stage of the competition.
Let's shift it to the present since I think historical interpretations are muddling things a bit. What I'm saying basically is that if the vast majority of women started to require marriage and loyalty in today's society, then you'll find a lot more loyal and monogamous men. If the vast majority are interested in wealth and power, then the men will compete predominantly in terms of wealth of power. What is at least perceived as female sexual preference has a massive factor in influencing men's behavior in a way I'd argue is more powerful than men towards women.
Because if men started to favor women who are the most stable or loyal or anything of that sort, I think they'd sooner fail and find themselves incapable of discriminating so well sexually. I think women are better at maintaining the basic standards for sex and relationships than men, so to speak, who can go all the way to primitive creatures willing to pounce on anything with two legs.
Or we can shift it back to history but with evolutionary behavior in mind. Let's go way back to polygamous societies where powerful men had harems with thousands of wives. The women lacked many rights and freedoms back then, but you can see how man's nature expresses itself absent constraints. He's not discriminating, he takes as many women as he can get.
Unfortunately we do not have so much data of the reverse scenario of a society where men lack rights. Perhaps it is possible that women would just have a harem of thousands of husbands and just try to collect as many as possible. I don't know for sure.
But in general the impression I get is that men are not so discriminating unless there are social constraints to make them do so. And in a free society (not some backwards culture), the main enforcer of such constraints would be women as I see it. Men just take on whatever traits they need to get women.
And none of what I'm talking about has anything to do with ethics or moral beliefs. I don't talk in that context. I'm just saying, if I have hope of a more monogamous society where marriage is valued once more, and I had to choose which sex would be capable of making that valued once more, I would gamble on women, not men. I have no concern about "should", I just think the probability is higher in that context. Men can try to change all they want but if it doesn't impress women, they'll probably revert back to whatever works.
Okay, phew, I'll try to make this as gender-neutral as possible.
Let's say Person A asks Person B out on a date. Person A feels a greater need to impress person B. Person A might even pay for the entire date. Person A is more attracted to person B than the reverse (person B is still making up their mind). Person A is more eager to jump into bed than person B (person B decides when, and if, that will happen).
I would say the general sex of person B is the one that has the most power in influencing the actions and behavior of person A throughout the entire courtship and relationship than the reverse.
... especially when person B's behavior is reciprocated by many people of the same sex. Now if the person A is female and it's females who ask men out and do all these things, I would gamble on males as having a greater chance of influencing female behavior. If person A is male, however (and I think that's generally the case), I would gamble on person B (the female) to have the greater chance in this regard.
Finally (sorry for length, so delicate of a subject), let's say I lived in a world where all a man has to do is show up to a bar in a thong and dance to almost guarantee being laid. In that case I wouldn't be answering this question, I wouldn't be married, I'd be spending all my free time in bars dancing in thongs.
I'm married now and value the company of a loyal and supportive woman, but in that world I doubt I would have ever come to appreciate it. I would have laughed in the face of people trying to convince me of the value of relationships while I was dancing in a thong and hooking up with a different woman every night. We can be weak like that, thinking with our dicks.
Now women already sort of live in that world, and yet so many aren't doing that. They still value monogamy and commitment and something long-term. So women seem much stronger than men in that regard in terms of thinking past some desire to sleep with as many people as possible...
... that's why I'd gamble on women to have the greater potential influence on society in terms of romance, courtship, and relationships. In this scenario I consider women the stronger one to gamble on.
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both need to step up.
but i think it is important to note that... divorce rates are not on the rise. they been on a slow decline. the rate of happy marriage or unmarried monogamous cohabitation is on the rise. the rate of single mother's has been somewhat steady but a trend developing is women opting to raise children on their own by choice
ultimately though, both men and women need to step up and do good. the onus is on one or the other
I meant influence on a more personal level. For example 70% of divorces initiated. Both sexes need to work on marriage, but women are the ones ending it. Females changed, and are way more promiscuous than long ago. Men always were promiscuous, but since women join in nowadays it's Sodom and Gomorrah. Women have more personal reasons not to fuck around than men. Men have less opportunities, and therefore try harder. I know it's unfair, but women can stop it easier.
But I guess women have a great deal of influence on society nowadays. Don't know if more or less than men, but with feminism they got a tool to change society. That's what feminism was created for, as a tool to change things that weren't right. The movement lost a lot of it's supporter in the last years, but if it changes directions it can be used for that goal. For the rest I would go along with what AK667 wrote.
You don't watch videos she says... are you afraid of youtube... lol The point he's trying to make is, Girls go for attraction more than guys do lol... regardless of if he's being an ass, or depressed, broke.. etc... didn't matter
--> that causes a disequilibrium... and mismatches people...
Its always the same narrative that you hear from people lol thats why --> Average Women getting into bad relationships (reaching too high), average men barely getting women...
Well its more about who would see you as hot too --> otherwise it probably won't work out well... You shouldn't settle just go for what a good match lol... but thats what most people don't do... girls mainly because they get the chance since guys are so receptive to playing relationship for sex...
I say both and I say neither at the same time. I think its parents who need to change. Parents as a whole have lost control of the situation and have stopped teaching kids a moral value. Humans aren't inherently born with a moral compass what we have is a carefully cultivated social construct. Parents need to stay together and teach both boys and girls how to act, how to stick through hard times and work through problems.
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