I'm referring here to things like Hanna Rosin's 'The End of Men'(the combo of the decline of manufacturing + women excelling in higher education and the corporate workforce, plus revolutionising workplace, means men's traditional gender role is obsolete) and the widely established research into women outperforming men in social and emotional intelligence, ergo complaints about lack of support in childcare, emotional labour, etc. Add to this that I would say pop-feminism encourages criticising women to scrutinise partners (or partners' friends) for deficiencies, e.g. is he stupid? What is he actually offering? There was a recent debate among friends about whether it's common for men to feel insecure and intimidated out of dating intelligent women. It's my observation that on the whole women feel they bring more to the table in friendships and relationships with men (cis-heterosexual ones, at least), they are tired of being condescended when more often than not they're the smarter, more successful, socially skilled person, they literally bring more value to the world than the guy, and if the studies are correct discounting evolutionary psychology shit then they're right to feel that way. But men are also right to be intimidated by bringing a lack to the table. TRP, MRA-MGTOW, incels, etc. try to explain this as a bi-product of hypergamy, rather than just men being inadequate.

Every time I come into 'the gender wars' and think about the research and data, I always fall down this "women are better than men" rabbit hole. Which is ironic that I should keep coming back to forgiveness from subs for recovering misogynists. But yeah all the stats suggest that but for patriarchy women are better than men as a class and it will be this way for most of my lifetime. It seems logical to be insecure or intimidated, even if it's not good for me and I still have to contend with toxic masculinity and the expectation to approach, lead (at least be prestigious), demonstrate 'high value' (higher?) etc. Gender roles are fucked right now and I hate everything. I hate this stupid OCD or whatever it is. The only way I escape this is to try not to think about it at all and live my life, but again 'objectively' I am lacking, why *shouldn't* I feel shitty?