Often times, most women on the sub will begrudgingly agree that on average women have an easier in dating at least in the terms of having more options presented to them. A common argument against this is that while women have an advantage in dating, they will either say that they do not have an advantage in other places, or even a disadvantage, or that dating “is not all that men think it is”. To me, it clearly is, and it comes from women’s devaluing of relationships Given the immense privilege they have in this category.

Why dating is far more important of a category than other things (jobs, housing, hobbies, etc):

  1. Assuming a minimum level of security, relationships, both platonic and romantic are essentially what everything that is fulfilling is based on. Most hobbies are fulfilling because you do them with friends or people you like, not that you do them by yourself and no one watches. Jobs matter, but obviously who your coworkers are and your relationship with the company also matters. Almost everything humanity does is based around a relationship, so to say a relationship is not an important category or that somehow a job is completely separate from a relationship is disingenuous. These categories are more separate from a romantic relationship, but women are also blessed in this category by seeming less of a threat, being socialized better earlier and so having better social skills to develop friendships, and in general having larger social circles, which I also count as part of the women being advantaged in relationships category.

  2. Romantic relationships at the marriage level are often times the only thing that is consistent in your life theoretically. You retire from a job or you get fired from a job, the average stay of company is getting shorter and shorter, and hobbies are highly dependent on your skills and interests, as well as your physical abilities. As a concept, marriage is meant to be one of the very few things that is till death do us part, even if a lot of people don’t follow it that way. If you have a better shot at one of the very few things that can be treated as a constant in life why would that not be advantageous, as relationships have a higher value compared to other things. Financially speaking an asset with a 10 year usable lifespan is worth less than an asset within an indefinite usable lifespan.

  3. The glass ceiling women complain about really only applies to executives and extremely high paying positions, whereas the relationship deficit for men is not set up this way. Is not like most average men can get a moderately fulfilling relationship and have a ceiling on how happy they could be, it’s that many don’t get anything at all. it seems strange for women to compare not being able to become a CEO as easy as men to not getting basic romantic interest in their entire life. This is either them devaluing it because they receive it so much, lusting after power because they feel like they’ve never had it or essentially want the things they can’t have, or combination of both. Simply put there are plenty of female CEOs and your average woman that may be able to get 80% of a career without any pushback, with their remaining 20% having some level of patriarchal pushback, where a man is lucky lucky to get 20% of his relationship goals fulfilled.

  4. You don’t take the money when you die, so any career building that would gain large amounts of income is essentially lost when you die unless you either donate the money, live lavishly, or have children and pass the money down. The first is a good use of money, but is difficult to find charities that will guarantee your money has impact, the second is simply living selfishly, and so really it’s only the third option that has meaningful impact that you could trust to go somewhere. Sure there are chances that your kid would squander any money, but at least you have a parenting say preventing that unlike a charity squandering your money which you really do not have a say in. Essentially to me, this means that the maximum career you could have really is impacted by having kids in a relationship, unless you become famous and have a direct impact on the planet. Sure if you’re going for a Nobel prize you could argue that’s completely outside/not affected by having a relationship, or creating your own charity, but how many here are that level of important to society? having a good relationship and kids to spend the money on is kind of the point of having a super lucrative career. I feel like most women who complain about a glass ceiling are deluding themselves thinking they will become the next person on Forbes when in reality they’ll become like any other mid to high ranking executive when they’re 50 years old, and completely forgettable. This is true of men and women, as most people are not exceptional.

Any way you slice it to me it seems like a relationship and your ability to form Social bonds is kind of the point of human existence. There are niche cases of super high productivity or society changing people, but to essentially claim that women’s advantage in relationship forming is practically useless simply because of a handful of men who are advantaged in becoming that person seems disingenuous and picking outliers. I would think most men would swap with women any day, in that most men would rather have an advantage in relationship forming over an advantage at becoming a super elite career wise, simply because for most people, the career advantage would not play out, but the relationship advantage would.

TLDR: for your average person, a woman’s advantage in finding a relationship is far more impactful on their life than the man’s ability to have a higher paying career at the top level.