[MicroBerto]

Of course you'll find some males that "marry up", but the data proves what many of us have known forever - as a man, you should strive to be elite in something, preferably something useful and sexually attractive. Otherwise you're just another brick in the wall.

Where this is all going to blow up in society is the fact that women are now better-educated, and will soon make more money than their male counterparts, who are slowly getting more discriminated against (see Yahoo lawsuit) and less engaged in the proverbial rat race.

A case in point is looking at highly successful black females. They have a rough time in the dating scene, and this is extremely well-documented. Over the course of the next generation, I see this spreading to other females as well.

What effectively is going to happen is that you'll see more men dropping out of the marriage pool, the pareto principle in dating will become stronger than ever, and reliance upon the nanny state to help single mothers raise their children will likely go up too.

Hate it all you want, but these are three extremely well-established trends and I don't see them getting any better. Tinder is the canary in the coalmine. This is where we're heading.

A country needs strong, highly-engaged men who act as leaders. America is losing that more each and every day, and it saddens me.

[colmvp]

Regarding your point about black women:

At least in North America, Black females, like Asian men, have a harder time in the dating scene partially due to their gender/ethnicity combination. Both sets endure media representation and stereotypes that play against their sexual desirability. I'm sure people here will profess that they are immune to any images cultivated by the media and I'm not going to discount their experience. However, I think it's naive to believe that images we consume on a daily basis, such as the gender/ethnicity makeup of desirable lead characters or negative representations in the news don't unconsciously affect us. Anecdotally, I have met more black men who said they would never date a black women and Asian women who said they'd never date Asian men compared to white people who say they'd never date a white person. Online dating stats from eHarmony, okCupid, and coffeemeetsbagel reinforce that observation.

On top of that, people generally have a statistical preference for those within their own race. And if black men have a higher tendency to be imprisoned than other men, that puts black women at an additional disadvantage to finding a partner.

I guess my overall point is issues black women face are very different and unique to what Hispanic/White/Asian women face.

[LordKano]

I have seen and experienced this, from the inside.

I'm an educated black man (MS Degree) with a good job (Fortune 500 company) and my female relatives, many of whom are also educated and successful have difficulty with establishing and maintaining relationships.

Obviously not all, but many black women have unrealistic expectations. As other have already pointed out, women are adverse to marrying "down" so when a woman reaches a certain level of education/career advancement, it's extremely difficult to find a mate that meets her criteria. Lists of things, like Over 6 feet tall, lots of muscles, Bachelor's degree or higher, Churchgoing Christian, no children, good relationship with his mother, not domineering but not too passive, earning at least 6 figures and other wish-list type stuff. There are women who won't give a man the time of day unless he meets all of them. They, as you can well imagine, are lonely.

There are cultural taboos against black women becoming romantically involved with non black or hispanic men. I have only personally known one black woman who was involved with an asian man(his family came here from Vietnam and he grew up in "the 'hood") and only a few who are involved with white men.

I have never been in a relationship with a black woman. A date here and there. A fling here and there but never a relationship. Where I live, a video game playing, Dungeons and Dragons fan, comic book collecting, politically active guy doesn't tend to get much romantic interest from black women. Then, there's also the phenomenon of the black women who don't want anything to do with you getting upset because you're dating outside of the race.

I have also noticed that as we approach and pass 40 years of age, these women with their stratospheric standards are forced to carry on alone and bitter or drop their standards. Some of them get rid of them entirely just to get a man. I have even heard a fair bit of professional women getting involved with street dudes.

I guess my overall point is issues black women face are very different and unique to what Hispanic/White/Asian women face.

Agreed. Some of the issues are cultural, some are societal and some are of their own making.

[LordKano]

Re-reading this a couple of days later, I can see how a part of it could be misinterpreted so I wanted to clarify.

I should have said that many of my female relatives have these problems.

In retrospect, it looked like I was saying all of them.

[balls187]

> ...in North America, Black females, like Asian men, have a harder time in the dating scene

data to back this up: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race-attraction-2009-2014/

[meric]

As an Asian man - If I was single and I "hit on" a woman on the street once a day, it's more likely than not I'll be in a relationship within the month. It's not that hard, I often wonder how easy it is for non-Asian men. Do you just turn on Tinder and find yourself sleeping with women within 24 hours?

[majani]

You've got more bravery than most to just walk up to a lady during the day and say hi. That more than makes up for any disadvantages your race may put you at.

[vacri]

> I have met more black men who said they would never date a black women and Asian women who said they'd never date Asian men compared to white people who say they'd never date a white person

Anecdote: a second-gen-immigrant Italian friend of mine said her mother declared that my friend was not allowed to marry an Italian man, the reasoning being "I didn't raise my daughters to be mothers to their husbands". My friend said that from what her mother saw, Italian-culture men behaved like other men when married to a non-Italian woman, but when married to an Italian, there was a cultural expectation similar to mothering involved.

data size n=1, anecdata, all that stuff.

[tomp]

> as a man, you should strive to be elite in something, preferably something useful and sexually attractive. Otherwise you're just another brick in the wall.

The way you phrase this, the more probable cause would be that women don't want to marry down, hence men are motivated to be better (and they know that by being "just another brick in the wall" won't get them the partner they want").

This agrees with my observations of the world. Men don't care about accomplishments, they (we) just want a woman that is beautiful; whereas women care much more about a man's social status (warning: this is a very broad generalisation and of course doesn't hold for everybody).

[kevincrane]

> A country needs strong, highly-engaged men who act as leaders. America is losing that more each and every day, and it saddens me.

Literally every president in US history has been a man, 80.6% of Congress are men, 95.5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are men, and you're sad that it's getting marginally harder for men and that the country is lacking in strong male leaders?

[hnthrowaway4819]

Men-as-homogeneous-group fallacy. Given a high variance, it's entirely possible that the top [small-percentage]% of men hold presidencies, CEO positions, etc, while the large majority of men are suffering a degradation in status, respect, resources, etc. (And objectively so -- look at earnings trends in inflation-adjusted terms for men vs. women over the past 40 years.) The way these two are conflated seems to be at the root of a lot of animosity in the Gender Wars lately.

I'd tend to agree with GP that while existing as a white male today is still "easy mode" in many ways when you do push yourself, there's definitely this feeling that society is celebrating everyone else while you're sort of left on your own without much encouragement.

[jbpetersen]

It'd be interesting to see historical statistics on the variability of different "success" metrics with regard to sex.

[andromeduck]

I don't really agree with the sentiment but your example is also pretty poor rebuttal because those are some of the laggiest indicators.

[argonaut]

They also represent exactly what the poster wanted: the leaders of America (who are mostly strong aggressive men).

[sridca]

I find it rather interesting that people advocate for such things as basic income (wherein a basic level of financial incentive is obviated), all the while steadfastly grasping at the notion that sexual/ marital incentive is essential for a thriving country.

[auntyJemima]

I agree a lot with you. Time will tell and we can just hope to carve out the best for ourselves in this big cold world.