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Interesting, though I do think the author is somewhat callous. There is something distinctly human, I think, about love and pair bonding and both the idea of "love at first sight" as well as the tale of "Beauty and the Beast". In my experience, there are certain women of varying attractiveness levels who seem to like me just for being me, rather than because I possess an extraordinary degree of some single quality like strength or intelligence (which would assume we strictly follow polygyny). Of course, the desire for polygyny exists, but to assume that that is all there is to "mating" is somewhat Hobbesian. Then again, the inequality w/r/t men is somewhat inherent across time keeping in mind the "average man" gives the life vests to women & children, charges across the front into the enemy's machine gun nest, and toils the fields for their master. Hell, if you lost the war you became a eunuch and lived the rest of your life a slave. So I don't think this inequality is anything new. Ultimately, though perhaps there's still lots of inequality in the "dating economy", I think it's better in our society than it has ever been. Most anyone can work to get in shape, or pursue their hobbies. There's no caste structure, and though some people have it easier than others (resources from parents or genetics), it's more than possible with dedicated effort to change oneself because that seems to be something people struggle hard to do. Additionally, there's more variety in our culture than ever before. Women and men can be attractive for different reasons, and so there's many groups people can fall into. There's intelligent people, athletic people, social people, creative people, spontaneous people, mysterious people, etc. Instead of there just being one group -- royalty ala Madame Bovary -- there are many different groups you can choose to be in which nets you much more opportunity than ever before. I'm glad I was able to think through this and come out of it with an honest, optimistic take; it's too easy -- at least for me -- to be nihilistic when you see an article like this |