Current feminism and the fight for gender equality is based on the premise that women (still) have a worse life than men and that this unfairness needs to be removed, right? And it’s never mentioned in the widespread discourse on gender equality that women, on average, have and always had, the power monopoly in romance, by which I mean the entire complex of love, sex, bonding etc., all of which I’ll refer to as ‘romance’ in the following.

Why? Is this because people are too prudish to talk about that, especially in a political/sociological context? Alternatively, if romance were not that important, this neglect would be understandable per se, but the opposite is actually the case: It’s one of the most important aspects, if not the most important aspect of life, and importantly, for both genders! Biologically/evolutionarily it’s even the meaning of life. And even in our fairly advanced technological society, it appears that not much has changed (if anything at all): Romance is literally everywhere, e.g. in most novels, movies, songs, etc. - So, using feminist lingo, women oppress (and have always oppressed) men in arguably the most important realm of life! While that may sound absurd at first, how is it different from how men oppressed (yes, past tense) women in other aspects of life? The vast majority of men are at the merci of women choosing them as romantic partners – the man has absolutely no say in the matter. And if power imbalances between the genders in other areas were considered oppressive, how would this one not be?

Of course, most women (many of which aren’t even aware what a huge advantage in life it is) and even many men won’t admit it, often not even to themselves! And it’s also a big part of ‘game’ (i.e. romantically approaching women) to pretend it isn’t so and that at least that man (employing ‘game’) has plenty of options and thus is a ’high quality man’ and so the woman he romantically approaches would be lucky enough to be with him. But all of that is lying and pretending – it doesn’t reflect the true state of the matter at all! And it’s actually reflected in the wide-spread (and justified) complaint of women that ‘all men lie (and a lot)’.

Now, it’s often said that there’s the following ‘balance’ in this department: “Women are the gatekeepers of sex, and men the gatekeepers of relationships/marriage”. But that’s in general not true. Because for men, it only applies to the ‘top-percentage’ of men, a minority of men who are highly attractive for women (not necessarily physically attractive, mind you) and that, hence, have options. For the vast majority of men, women have the say regarding both sex and relationship/marriage. An obvious indicator for that is e.g. the tradition of the man literally begging on his knees for the woman to be his wife. Another one is the that in songs, it’s typical that if sung by a man, it’s full of praise, admiration etc. for a woman, while if sung by a woman, it’s usually about her disappointment in him, etc.

If we’re honest, (almost) everybody is aware of the importance of romance in life, and that it’s women, not men, who are the choosers and have the say here - and importantly, not only in their 20s, but throughout their lifetime: Even though male attention usually drops significantly, once a woman reaches a certain age, she’s then still in a much better position than the average man (of any age)! And here’s the kicker: There’s a clear correlation between highly unattractive women and the ones who started the individual waves of feminism. – I know, it’s not a nice thing to say, but it’s simply true. And it’s almost a q.e.d. for feminism being built on a completely wrong premise: It’s sad, but true that these women belong(ed) to the small minority of women that actually have/had much less power in romance than the average woman and, hence, have an overall significantly lower quality of life, if everything else is equal. Of course, the bulk of feminist women are not less attractive than the average woman, but that’s really a “D’uh …”: If you ask people (in general): “Would you prefer to have a better life than currently, or have things stay the same?”, obviously most people would join a movement that promises them a better life, regardless of whether it’s justified or not, in their case.

But because almost nobody got the idea or dared to include the power in romance, as the important factor for life quality that it is, in the discussion about gender equality, we’re now since ages misjudging the quality of life of women, on average, by erroneously equating their situation with that of very unattractive women! (And btw, but this is actually old news, conversely, we’re equating the situation of the tiny fraction of men in power with that of men, on average (à ‘patriarchal oppression’), which is also a fallacy.)

The premise of at least late-wave feminism is simply wrong, and women, on average, actually have a much better life than men, on average, in the Western world, now that the vast majority of women meanwhile have everything men have, but in addition still the power monopoly in romance. I’d go so far as to say that this is even an important factor in the ~3-4x higher male suicide rate than women’s. And that’s not as much of a stretch as it might at first sound, considering the strong correlation of male suicide with the statuses ‘single’, ’divorced’ and ‘widowed’, whereas conversely, that is not the case for female suicide! Furthermore, the male suicide rate is ~8-10x (!) as high after divorce than women’s (after divorce), which is even ~2.5x higher than the mentioned and already high 3-4x general ratio!

Counterarguments are that women actually commit ~2x as many suicide attempts as men, the vast majority of which is unsuccessful (in contrast to men’s attempts), because women tend to choose less violent means (e.g. sleeping pill OD vs. firearm) and that women are less likely to want to ‘leave a mess behind’ (the latter belonging to the more ridiculous ad-hoc hypotheses I’ve come across). But if you really want to end your life, the absolutely last thing you want to happen is for you to afterwards wake up as a compulsory inpatient in a psychiatric ward for weeks or even months, during which they take utmost care that you don’t try again. And that happens in ~95% of these kinds of OD-suicide attempts, so it’s almost guaranteed not to work! It’s obvious that most of these attempts are cries for help and actually manipulative in character, rather than driven by an earnest desire to end one’s life. And that’s a giant difference, because the fear of death is extremely strongly ingrained in humans’ minds, by evolution.

Another indicator for the lower quality of life of men, on average, is the ~2-4x as high rate of substance abuse among men, compared to women. That is, of course, ad-hoc-dodged with e.g. “men are less caring of their own health” etc., instead of thinking of the most straightforward reason: Self-medication against feeling terrible all day, everyday e.g. after a divorce, when the majority of ex-wives know, for a fact, they could have the next romantic partner at any point in time, even without doing anything (and are only limited by their own standards), whereas the majority of ex-husbands (again, excluding the ‘top-fraction’ of men, who have options) know for a fact that they’ll stay alone and lonely for the rest of their lives if they don’t go through the ordeal of approaching women again (with rejection rates from ~80-99%) – plus, they often suffer immensely from the large bias of family courts in favor of ex-wives.

I’d like to clarify at this point that I’m actually not for reverting the 2nd wave of feminism (and neither the 1st, obviously) and the divorce laws to before ~1970 (although there simply has to be a better solution than the current one!) and there’s a lot to be said why, but that would go beyond the scope of this post. My point here is that men, on average, meanwhile have a much worse life than women, on average. And that’s got everything to do with the power imbalance in romance, which, despite being extremely important, is never talked about in the context of gender equality.

I’m btw aware and actually expecting to get insulted, e.g. as an incel and labeled a misogynist etc. – not necessarily in this subreddit, but in case other people read it – and I’m almost looking forward to getting my impression so far confirmed that the only counter-arguments I’ll get are ad-hominem. And there’s of course also the chance of getting censored. After all, where would late-wave feminism be without censorship, and btw even in academia (!), where absolutely nothing, regardless of whether it’s true, passes peer-review that even in the slightest challenges the feminist narrative? 😉