Doing nothing also isn't much of a solution, though. Even aside from the personal suffering involved, historically, large populations of disaffected men tend to burn themselves off in either war or revolution, which are great for nobody.
A serious revision of gender roles is the only not-wildly-dystopian fix I can think of, but that's just kicking the can down the road to the question of how and to what do we perform that revision.
The reality is there's just a lot of guys who are very undateable. Will any revision of gender roles get a girl to go out with a unfunny, unattractive guy who's grown addicted to pornography and isn't interested in furthering his career? There are females in that position too, but it isn't looked at with the same seriousness.
Dateability isn't a static category; gender roles determine dateability. E.g. there's no particular reason "interested in furthering his career" needs to be a universal component of attraction.
As a real life counterexample, there are pretty much no gay incels. That's not because there aren't unattractive gay gays, and there are certainly winners and losers in that dating market and consequent bitterness. But the variety of male types that are considered potentially attractive is much broader.
I guess I would ask if they arent incel in the sense that they can get a one night stand or in the sense that they can get a fulfilling long term relationship. If all gay gays can get in real long term relationships easily that is interesting
If you could convince incel types to see women as actual people (not objects they are entitled to own), and as a consequence to see more types of women as desirable (not only the most model-like or mainstream media-like), then far more of them would find affection. But then again, if you could change those personality traits, they wouldn't be incels.
I think this is a pretty lazy answer, and it projects to reality assumptions that aren't in evidence. It's convenient, because it puts all the blame on the people struggling because they're evil and as such unworthy of social consideration. But it's just a rationalization to say that the main reason some men struggle is because they believe that women are their slaves and because they only pursue Instagram models.
Indeed, speaking from personal experience the stereotype is a pretty false one. Then again maybe I’m just not hanging out in the circles where stereotypical incels hang out.
While I completely agree with the premise, I see several obstacles:
1. How would you change culture on such a massive scale?
2. Given the poor state of a social safety net in the US, economic problems can very well be a real strain on a relationship, causing practical problems that might not otherwise crop up, killing relationships that might’ve otherwise survived. I think providing a better social safety net would go a long way towards helping solve this problem
3. Money is already generally not a thing shown on Tinder profiles, and yet the Tinder Gino coefficient is much worse than most real-life countries
How culture change is an interesting topic. From what I can see myself in regard to racism, efforts to change culture occur in practically every place. In media, in news, in politics, online, in advertisements and so on. However I would say that before any such methods there need to be an initial work that brings the issue into the public mind. Social inequality is not a problem which currently is seen as a problem, and so there is where such change must start.
Economic equality and social safety net are very important overall, but in this aspect there do exist a small paradox where increased economic equality increases social inequality. The causes for that is from what I see a still researched topic with multiple competing theories. The one I suspect is closest is that when economic equality increases, you get more instability in the social hierarchies, resulting in people putting higher value onto cultural cues.
As for the third obstacles, as with race, you don't need to explicit state economic status in order for people to guess it through proxy. Job title, clothing, where people live, all gives cues about money. There is a reason why tanned skin is still seen as an proxy for wealth, and why non-tanned skin was seen as a proxy for wealth back in a time where the majority of people worked as farmers.
If I look at the future and especially at places like China, there are additional tools for culture change which could be used for both good and bad. AI companions and citizen scores could be used to influence a population towards a culture change. A lot of technology is written to influence consumer behavior, and the same technology are already being used to influence political behavior. Influencing culture would not be that far jump, and it could potentially do so at a speed yet unseen outside of war.
The biggest point that nobody talks about is the following:
Sadly it's about physical attractiveness (or visual super-stimulus). There is a gap between average man vs woman attractiveness that has massively increased since the 80s.
Why? The natural gap is low but culturally and increasingly, women wear more and more sexier clothes while men do not.
Moreover makeup has evolved and most "ugly" woman can appear sexy if they master the art of makeup, which again men culturally cannot.
Regarding the first point I do believe men should wear sexier clothes to reduce the gap, even if that imply the need to shave. But it's hard to change the accepted man aesthetics (e.g some people find Crop tops gays)
Regarding makeup I mostly don't believe men will use it before many decades or at best a subset of makeup.
So the gap will be reduced but still is and will remain high until a long time. Moreover it is increasing nowadays as tiktok and other social trends make heavy "doll" makeup mainstream.
I imagine legalizing a safe (controlled) intake of testosterone could help men reduce the gap.
Considering modern obesity rates, pretty much every guy can become better than average by working out unless they have a really bad face which testosterone wouldn't help. Test would make it easier to become ripped but youd be aiming for well above average body at that point.
Edit: I do agree though there is a huge gap where it's accepted that woman can cheat in basically every way physically possible to look better and it's encouraged but men can't do more than work out or it's ridiculed. It doesn't help that rampant steroid use in Hollywood gives people unrealistic expectations of what's achievable by a guy with a full time job on top of that. I don't think test is needed to beat out the average overweight guy though.
I have a nerdy friend with a pretty slim frame who works out a lot but still can’t get stereotypically buff. (Not that I’m saying he needs to do that, just that he can’t.)
Still couldn’t get laid to save his life. Beating out “the average overweight guy” is far from enough, especially if you’re in nerdy circles.
The "gap" is largely irrelevant because what women find attractive is different to what men find attractive. Physical appearance isn't as important to women as it is to men. Being funny, earning well, having your life together, being confident etc is what does it for most women which is why young girls often end up dating 50 year old men.
I've gone through stretches where I was working out, doing pushups every day, etc. In the end it didn't make much difference. I found as the years passed I was able to date progressively more and more beautiful women, often to my great surprise, in the sense that I was tending to think they were 'out of my league' right up to the point we started dating. I'm not a particularly buff or good looking man by the standards presented to us in movies: quite average really. But women really respond to warm, funny confidence, the ability to entertain them and coming across as smart but not intellectually arrogant (probably they use it as a proxy for earnings potential).
I'm now fortunate to be engaged to the most beautiful women I've ever met, who in addition is calm, logical, self-reliant and self employed, funny, sweet and generous. We're head over heels in love. For years I thought it might never happen, because I searched for a long time and dated many girls in a search for love that never seemed to arrive (except once, but it was an unrequited love).
By far, the most important factor in me being able to get this girl was not physical appearance, in fact she told me that she finds buff guys unattractive because she associates it with cold and dumb guys who spend all their time working out, meaning they have nothing to say. What let me get her was years of refining my skills in what women start wanting once they're older than about 25.
Aborting male kids born to ugly parents would be an interesting idea. Women are guaranteed to reproduce, men are not. If you are going to have a son, and you know he's not going to be the most handsome guy, don't have a son. Otherwise you're a trash human being pushing a lifetime of suffering on another human due to no fault of his own. Just your selfish pleasure causing pain to another human.
Either be ultra wealthy or be a handsom man with a pretty woman if you want a son who wont be disadvantaged in the modern world.
Theres plenty of ugly dudes with good relationships. If you can somehow find people who are both ugly and will develop a terrible personality, maybe. I'm not convinced mass aborting people for being unlikable is more moral then letting them grow up alone though
In a world of billions of people, you'll find plenty of everything. The question is how much more difficult it is for those who are don't physically measure up. If some men are winning the lions share, then necessarily some others will have to do without.
Yeah, this false belief that some insist on clinging to, that only rich or gorgeously handsome men get a woman is so tiring. The world is filled with average or really not-good-looking guys with great girlfriends and wives. However, these are guys with kindness, talents, and other personality traits that they've learned to use wisely and guys who have learned that some great women don't always look like models. Humanity needs all of these traits, not only handsome faces.
How are women "guaranteed to reproduce"? There are plenty of women who choose not to reproduce, others who actually have standards and don't want to lower them to reproduce with just anyone, and yet others who are asocial, antisocial, or have a variety of psychological issues that make them unlikely to partner up with anyone. Same with men.
"If you are going to have a son, and you know he's not going to be the most handsome guy, don't have a son. Otherwise you're a trash human being pushing a lifetime of suffering on another human due to no fault of his own"
Oh, please. Like physical attractiveness has to be the most important thing in a person's life.
Not to mention that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and there have been plenty of people who were not conventionally attractive and still had worthwhile and fulfilling lives.
You'd probably have aborted Samuel Johnson and Socrates.
A serious revision of gender roles is the only not-wildly-dystopian fix I can think of, but that's just kicking the can down the road to the question of how and to what do we perform that revision.