(Q4All)When did men first have to be desirable/likable

toasterchild · 2022-12-02T15:47:15+00:00

This is the first generation that had to grow up with social media where they get to compare their own lives so readily to the highlight reels of others. It's making everybody want to settle less and less. Men blame women, women blame men but really it's just social media fucking everything up.

Mrs_Drgree · 2022-12-02T15:00:59+00:00

Men have always needed to be impressive. It's just that in previous eras men needed to impress her family rather than the woman directly. Only if he was considered an appropriate match would he have been in her sphere.

EugeneCezanne · 2022-12-02T16:28:10+00:00

The premise is exaggerated, but it is true to some extent that women in the past--say, prior to 1970, the first year in which a majority of women were in the workforce--faced a lot more pressure to settle for men for financial dependence.

waffleznstuff30 · 2022-12-02T17:00:31+00:00

I think once our expectations of relationships went up.

Before for women relationships/marriage were a way to live. We couldn't get jobs or get mortgages. And the spinster life was frowned upon. But now instead of a man being a utility for living a man can be a welcomed addition to life.

And also with collective idea that men tend to not pull their weight in relationships. A paycheck can only go so far but a partner and a support goes way further. Someone who helps raise the kids if you want them and takes and active role in child rearing. A man who helps with domestic tasks as well since most households are dual income. Since both adults work both adults should help with tasks.

Also in regards to treatment every woman has a horror story about a guy who just did the bare minimum. Why would you want to settle for someone who does the bare minimum? If you are picking a life partner wouldn't you want someone who does a lot for you? And give you the same effort you give them? That seems more logical to me

gofigure62 · 2022-12-02T17:59:12+00:00

I'd say the 2000's.

Listen to any boomer joke regarding marriage and it's abundantly clear that most heterosexual couples didn't like each other at all. They were only together due to economic dependance, obligation, and societal pressures.

Despite women gaining economic freedom, there weren't as many economic avenues for women to out earn men, or at least earn enough to live independently from men. Even if a woman made a good enough salary, she still needed a higher income than hers to purchase a house and raise children. For social approval and the "American Dream" women HAD to attach themselves to a man, even if they were educated and employed.

The technology boom and global market has allowed many women to become entrepreneurs. More women own microbusinesses compared to men. And small women owned businesses have more growth than small male owned businesses. Women have independent income where they can purchase their own houses and have children on their own if they want to. The contribution of a male partner isn't a necessity for women that are able to economically support themselves. More single women in the US own homes compared to single men.

There is also less value in social opinions. No one cares if someone thinks poorly of them for being unwed and not having children. Social criticisms and expectations don't have any weight because people don't need to depend on community or family for any of their needs. Our individualistic society means that people meet all of their needs on their own or they go without. If someone doesn't fit in somewhere they can move, socialize with people who live further away, or have human connection through online socializing.

Romantic companionship isn't necessary anymore. People who aren't economically desperate and people who aren't desperate for social acceptance don't need to marry someone. People have the luxury to enter into relationships based on wants and fullfillment. People are allowed to choose to date people that they like and improve the quality of their lives because they're not dependent on the other person to provide for them.

If someone is currently used to a standard of living on their own that they're capable of meeting by themselves, then if they invite someone into their lives, that person will have to improve their lives in some way. Typically that means being in company of someone who makes someones life more enjoyable.

Caetraaa · 2022-12-02T14:55:40+00:00

It's only been about 140 years that women could even own property, and while in most places we've technically been able to refuse marriage, the social pressure and threats of violence for refusal still exist today in some countries.

I don't really know an exact answer but I'd guess about the 1960s for most Americans. It's true that there was some degree of control going back to the 1920s, but really only for wealthy women with financial backing.

Lift_and_Lurk · 2022-12-02T15:18:15+00:00

It’s always “just 10 years ago” because the majority of dudes are in their teens and 20s so they weren’t paying attention to sex and relationships- they were watching cartoons and playing with Pokémon or whatevs.

You really think things were that different in 2012? When Taylor Swift and Rihana were still the most popular singers on the planet? Or 2002, when the X-men and spider man movies were starting up the superhero craze? Or he’ll even the 90’s when the whole world was preaching about safe sex and “girls gone wild” was mainstream?

That’s at least 30 years. It’s just the little boys didn’t notice cause they weren’t born yet or were too young to pay attention.

anon018274031 · 2022-12-02T15:06:47+00:00

Men have always had to be impressive- it just used to be they had to impress the family/community elder etc (who whoever had ownership or control of who the girl married).

MistyMaisel · 2022-12-02T17:38:46+00:00

Depends what you mean by "have to be". Also depends on the man's goals.

A thing, I think a lot of men here rarely account for when talking about men impressing their families and thus being given a woman/ arranged marriage/forced marriage, is that women in the past didn't really like their husbands in the way we understand it today. They existed, they ran his household, they gave him children, and sometimes there was sex. And if he was smart or lucky, she wasn't cucking him with some guy she really actually had feelings for and desires for. Love, passion, and being liked and accepted was not so much a thing. Men yearn for these days, but place a glossy top on it that the women loved these men. They didn't. You can read novels and letters of women making it clear they hated these guys. Getting a woman assigned to you, much like any other slave, doesn't mean she's going to treat you well or love you. Just that you will get a bare minimum.

With that said, if you come a little further forward, "love matches" become way more common as does courting even among the lower classes. In which case, yes, these men started to have to be desirable not only to the families, but also to the women themselves as women started to have more of an ability to decline marriage proposals. Now, obviously, desirable will have different definitions at different times, but women talk about having a "kind face, looking quite smart, and being very amenable" are all statements about being desirable and/or charming. Of course, finances still almost inevitably were of major concern. But even more so at these times we will see that if women married men they didn't like or find desirable, they did not love them and had cold marriages like the above. Many a novel has been written on the topic. Jane Austen covers it all the time, Louisa May Alcott covered it a bit. The Brontes. The idea of marrying a man you detest for stability wasn't crazy back then, it was just very sad and these women were meant to take heart in their love for their children and friends.

Which more or less carries you to like the 1920-50s iconic era and the present day. Women really don't marry men unless they find them desirable or likable.

uccelloverde · 2022-12-02T14:53:46+00:00

I assume in earlier generations, especially the 1950s and before, women felt much more pressure to find a partner because they were unlikely to be able to get a career and support themselves. So, a guy could get away with less effort on being attractive because he could find someone woman who needed a husband to survive and therefore would be less stringent in vetting him.

bluestjuice · 2022-12-02T15:10:04+00:00

Yeah, this idea is a vast oversimplification.

It’s trying to be saying that with decreasing pressure to be married in order to obtain essential aspects of life (financial stability, children, sex, social status, etc.), marriage and therefore pairings are increasingly optional, meaning people having to work harder for success than they may have in the past.

It ends up sounding like men never had to put any effort in at all in eras past, that there weren’t unhappily single guys previously, or that women never left unhappy marriages, all of which is demonstrably untrue. It also ignores a lot of nuance relating to the wide variety of times, places, and social classes throughout history.

KayRay1994 · 2022-12-02T15:18:48+00:00

This is def the first set of generations where men have to do more than just provide - point blank, the western world especially is far safer than it was in the past, it’s more accepting, more equal and survival is the easy part. Men can’t get by just by providing the essentials for survival anymore, and while you might not have to be likable per say (since it is a subjective term, and what’s likable to one person isn’t to another), a man kinda has to evolve with the times, so to speak

gymbro718nyc2 · 2022-12-02T15:10:44+00:00

The exact time is the time that the specific PPD member hit puberty and started getting interested in BWEEBS.

Fancy-Respect8729 · 2022-12-02T17:13:00+00:00

Men have always had to be desirable since the first footsteps on the sand. Even when women were "given away" in marriage they still hated the geezer.

HuckleberryThis2012 · 2022-12-02T18:47:54+00:00

For basically ever, the difference is they used to only have to be likable to the future father in law who would essentially give the daughter to him. But in terms of women having the deciding vote it’s hard to say, since there’s likely been many times in which A woman has had the ability to choose, but for all/most I don’t know. Worldwide we aren’t even at a place where all women have the choice 100% in their hands.

HazyMemory7 · 2022-12-02T14:57:19+00:00

It's a stupid talking point that fails to take into account that while the average guy isn't very appealing as a dating prospect, the average woman is also a very shitty dating prospect.

Nowadays a "catch" is a woman who isn't overweight or a single mother. Men have always had to be desirable by virtue of the fact that men in general (competition) value youth and beauty.

abaxeron · 2022-12-02T14:51:07+00:00

When did men first have to be desirable/likable?

It's always just 10 years ago, because as women have collectively decided, merely 20 years ago rape was basically still legal.

I wish I was talking out of my ass, but right here on PPD I've seen women claiming they had no rights as recently as in year 1990. Then 2020 happened, and women started saying that they had no rights as recently as in year 2000. This insanity happened before my very eyes.

In reality reality, forcing women to marry got outlawed in Europe at least in 12th century, and women always had enough means to earn for themselves.

Fighting_dorks6969 · 2022-12-02T14:53:20+00:00

Because everything as life goes go on gets held to a higher degree of scrutiny the more we learn about anything. So women have learned that men are indeed different from them in terms of base desires. We can pretty much just blame the internet as it gave women a space to see what men are like when most comfortable to bullshit about whats in their heads. Women found out they dont like whats in the male brain. What else is a women to do about these behaviors and points of view besides not fucking men and judging them out of context?

AstronautLoveShack · 2022-12-02T15:00:30+00:00

When women started being able to select their own partners instead of being forced into marriage by societal pressure, family, religion, and financial circumstances. Now we can marry (or not) because we actually are attracted to the man and not because we can’t own property or have a credit card in our own name.

alphasupremacy5555 · 2022-12-02T15:27:55+00:00

Probably around the time of the sexual revolution or right after. Before then men made much more money than women, women didn't make enough love on their own plus who would protect her if she didn't have a man and marriage was basically a man getting a woman and it was his duty and responsibility to take care of her well.

darksoul1622 · 2022-12-02T15:40:25+00:00

It isn't that simple as a man who reads history this is my perspective.

In general before the 19th century marriage for women was less like a relationship and more as a job women were barred from employment whether directly or indirectly or worked under the supervision and for the husbands or father's they didn't own property directly in most cases but through a male kin or husband, and also before contraceptions most women spent an hour early adulthood up until menopause in continues state of being pregnant or recovering from pregnancy/tending to the children, also religious and cultural values generally deemed women who are unmarried by a certain age (generally by her mid twenties) to be something shameful and unnatural and also bring about rumors about her purity ( which was the single most important thing in a women at that time) that were not only destructive to her reputation but to her families reputation as well.

Factors like the above made getting married as soon as possible an extremely important thing as important as the need for a man to find employment this need coupled with the extremely short time line before she is considered "old" made men the selectors in this game( the potential husband and the father of the woman) where as a man you generally requested the hand of the women you desired both in terms of attractiveness and likeability women had to accept men based on the financial capabilities ( as I said earlier marriage was a job) that is not to say that women did not consider other traits such as like ability or attraction but they paled in comparison to the main thing which is the ability to provide as they could not provide for themselves in that time

Also one thing about the nature of marriage back in the old days is there there was generally no period of dating so you generally married a person we have actually knowing who they are as a person and that didn't change until very recently around the late 90s and early 2000s.

In general you can say that men always had to be desirable to women what changed from the old days is that now they have to be likeable and desirable as partners that is to say that they should be desirable in the physical and emotional department as opposed to be desirable as employers where their desirability comes from their capabilities to provide which they were back in the day that is not to say that capabilities to provide or undesirable these days they are desirable but not as much as they were not even by a long shot.

So to keep it short when did Men start to have to be desirable depends on what you mean by desirable is it to be desirable as partners then possibly late 90s but if you mean desirable as providers and employers then that goes way back and in some countries like my own men are still mainly judged as providers not as life partners.

Peacesquad · 2022-12-02T16:10:30+00:00

Is this a serious question? men have had to acquire resources and status and social proof to attract women since the beginning of time

GVM3SnakeBeater · 2022-12-02T17:25:13+00:00

Yes I remember clearly. Back in the day Billy Boy in his Iron Maiden shirt, torn jeans, leather accessories and all other metal head trinkets had to navigate 1980s streets on his horse drawn buggy to his sweetheart Perm Hair Becky's farmstead to ask for her families blessing to take her out to the nearest mall where they would certainly participate in a barn raising and not at all fuck in the back seat on a parking lot.

What the fuck are these retards even talking about? Last ten years? In what parallel dimension?

modidlee · 2022-12-02T18:06:48+00:00

Men always had to be desirable. Being likable has never been a requirement and it isn't now either. The most likable guy will be a 50yr old virgin if he isn't desirable enough.

violet4everr · 2022-12-02T18:46:13+00:00

Depends on how you define desirable, men in the past were valued pretty much solely on their ability to provide. That’s what made them desirable or undesirable. And women were very limited in their ability to practice autonomy, be it opening bank accounts, acquiring resources through their own non domestic labor, or having love marriages. Men have always needed to be desirable in that sense.

But if you are talking things like looks, personality what have you- maybe the 1960s onward? It’s gonna depend per culture and country

Bikerbats · 2022-12-02T20:56:36+00:00

Easily mid 19th century forward (you're only 100 years off). You can see it reflected in the literature, where the rise of women choosing their partners became en vogue with writers like the Bronte sisters. Personal history, my parents were part of the greatest generation (40's when I was born) and apparently my WWII vet father had to pursue the hell out of my mother to get anywhere with her. They weren't even handing women out to decorated WWII vets, sorry.

DisasterPeace7 · 2022-12-02T21:49:52+00:00

Men have always had to be desirable and likable in one way shape or form, Maybe in much more previous eras it was about impressing her family more than her but a lot of that whole first time in human history is just a feminist talking point, you know not to take most of what that tribe says seriously lol

WilliamWyattD · 2022-12-03T00:21:51+00:00

It has always been on a continuum. Whatever one thinks of gender relations in the past, daughters were rarely if ever treated exactly like chattel slaves. Even if the family made the decision, the bride's feelings were typically taken into some amount of consideration. I've even read evolutionary biologists talk about the fact that despite greater male power, men had to adapt to female preferences to some extent because a woman was simply hard to control given the limited 'state' apparatus of evolutionary times. She could run away or even commit suicide if she was completely repulsed by her partner.

In the fact that males and females have clearly adapted to the sexual selection pressures of the other in reciprocal dynamics lies proof that neither female nor male preferences have ever been completely ignored when determining mating.

That__EST · 2022-12-02T15:54:14+00:00

I'd say Millennials are really the first generation where men have had to actively impress women. It's been fading out for awhile, but even Gen Xers seem to have it easier and a kind of assumption that you'd be settling down by your mid 20s with someone.

Over Thanksgiving I was kind of astounded by some of my fellow Millennials who weren't even engaged and had no children and were still working dead end jobs. It's so weird to me to hear someone talk about how they're too young for a career, marriage, or children and that they're having fun while they're young but absolutely plan to settle down in the future. And then you find out that they're 37. And that's not an exaggeration. The girl I was thinking about who said just that was 37. But there were lots of them who were no younger than 30 who were in the same boat. No relationship in sight. No engagement. No marriage. No children. But not childfree. Not against marriage. Wants to be married with kids. No real fast desire to do so. Okeedokee 🤷‍♀️

General_High_Ground · 2022-12-02T21:08:37+00:00

You've got it all wrong. lol

If we are being truly realistic here, women were mostly useless before.
They had no job, no money(nor property), not much skills except when it comes to cooking or cleaning the house, weren't as knowledgeable as men/were less educated or couldn't even get an education, had no social skills(especially in those places where they didn't even leave the house much) and this list can go on and on...

Men OTOH had much, much more going for them, it's not even comparable.
There was a lot of things men could do that women couldn't, but men could do almost everything women could.
If anything, no one ever settled as much for their partners as men did in the past.

The thing that has changed is that men don't need to impress other men(mostly fathers of the women they are courting), they need to impress women themselves, and also that women have more to actually offer today than they did in the past.

walterAizen · 2022-12-02T15:08:13+00:00

In the old days men would give their valuable attention to women in return for sex, nowadays men give their attention,money,status, network to women and are very unlikely to get any sex back. What has Society become honestly

stats135 · 2022-12-02T15:16:54+00:00

Go watch a nature documentary. Males have always needed to impress females for mating rights since before we even evolved into monkeys.

The only difference is HOW males become desirable. Spiders offered captured insects. Birds offered fish. And for most of humanity, men just showed that he can bring home the bacon.

If I had to say when this change happened, it would be invention of social security, that in practice, just taxes men to pay for welfare for women, bypassing the need for women to offer anything in return to be provided for.

2022-12-02T15:41:29+00:00

Anyone who’s read Urdu or any poetry of any language will know this statement just isn’t true. But don’t let actual history get in the way of feminist retcon to fit the current narrative.

AutoModerator · 2022-12-02T14:36:44+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "CMV" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

tired_hillbilly · 2022-12-02T15:04:42+00:00

Is this the first generation of men who had to be desirable to get girls? If not when did it start?

I don't think this is the first generation. The only difference in our scenario is that we can discuss these issues all over the world, thanks to internet. In those times, maybe men used to discuss these issues in their own friend circles.

But I certainly know that "men have to be desirable/likable" thing has not been happening from the beginning of time. We have read stories and folklores, that in earlier times kings used to hold competitions between women to decide who will they marry. During those times, it was the female who had to prove her worth.

It's like a see-saw, the power never hangs in balance. It goes completely one way or the other imo.

Georgist_Muddlehead · 2022-12-02T15:28:26+00:00

I think we can see from literature that men had to do some things to appeal to women in at least some cases. Consider 19th century novels like Pride and Prejudice. Also the kama sutra is a very old guide on how to pleasure women (I don't know if they needed that to attract them, keep them, or they just wanted to give them pleasure).

Even if there was a time when all women had to be married, men would benefit from being desirable, as this might enable them to marry a more desirable woman. A complicating factor is that women were not always free to choose their husband, so it may be that the man had to make himself more desirable to his future wife's father (this would probably have some overlap with what she would desire - particularly being a good provider - but not in other ways which people expect now).

There have always been spinsters and bachelors, so women didn't need men, and some men didn't get women. This was far less common though.

Impossible_You_8555 · 2022-12-02T15:30:28+00:00

Being likeable is a very suboptimal way to get a woman

northernlights190 · 2022-12-02T15:31:52+00:00

From the dawn of human history.

One of the most ahistorical ideas I sometimes see tossed around here is that the 20th Century was the first time women experienced agency in their choice of partner. In reality, while there has always been a diversity of ways in which cultures managed pairing off, we can look at cultures existing today which would be a good stand-in for our most ancestral, pre- environments, and see that pro-social traits such as “likability” are important in men (since you live and work with the same relatively small community of people your whole life, most of whom will be in some way related to you) and that women very often have plenty of agency in mate choice, and naturally want someone they find likeable and desirable.

KlingKlangKing · 2022-12-02T16:06:40+00:00

Since the beginning of time

MotleyCrew1989 · 2022-12-02T16:08:29+00:00

IMO, when the notion of romantical love became popular.

itm4l2000 · 2022-12-02T16:41:37+00:00

It's 2022, men should be more concerned about impressing themselves with self development, than pine for a woman's approval. GTFO!

drew8311 · 2022-12-02T18:03:49+00:00

This is a weird question because we don't really know the details of subtle human interactions 100+ years ago. Maybe it was closer to today than we think, women could have been uninterested in a guy for all sorts of reasons. Maybe these things were talked about less so there was less societal pressure to pick partners based on certain traits but people did it to some degree anyway because of basic human instinct. Really the main difference was less options, but some people have always had more options than others and when you have a choice you become more picky.

2022-12-02T18:05:15+00:00

I'd have thought that modern dating is more akin to early human courtship, which would have been centered more around companionship. Human society hasn't been uniformly victorian, there has been massively divergent anthropologies.

Ok_Razzmatazz_1751 · 2022-12-03T01:40:37+00:00

I am 43 years old ,and remember my Grandmother who passed away at the age of 98 talking about how handsome and charismatic my grandfather was when he was coming out of the Navy from World War II .That's when they met . So even back then men had to act a certain way, and be a certain way to attract. It's not a all of sudden phenomenon. I think the issue at hand is like every other subject on social media. Individuals who are like-minded have a place to go and complain , then it's magnified .However men have always had to be a certain way to attract women.

ThorLives · 2022-12-03T04:40:21+00:00

The entire premise that men didn't need to be attractive is wrong. Men always had to compete for women. The whole narrative that they didn't is just a victim narrative by women.

However, men have always had to compete on a wider variety of attributes than women. Be tall, handsome, wealthy, high status, kind, funny, interesting, etc etc. When men are competing using a lot of different attributes, then the relative importance of any one attribute (like physical appearance) is lessened.

They relative importance of these attributes have shifted over time - for example, as women earned more of their own money, the less important wealth becomes and the more important the other attributes have become. Men wanted to best wife or wives they could find, and that meant that men had to compete with other men for those women.

There is plenty of evidence that men have always had to cater to women's desires. Whether it's mens' fashion, men wearing boots to appear taller, men wearing expensive clothing to show off their high status, it's painfully obvious that men had to appear attractive to women. The color purple was illegal to wear by anyone but nobility, because clearly noble men wanted to show-off their high status to women and wanted the color reserved for them alone - basically the medieval equivalent of owning super expensive designer clothing.

Not long ago, this quote was going around Reddit: https://twitter.com/erik_kaars/status/1119521714612862976/photo/1 and people were laughing about it. It's describing how things were a thousand years ago - when very few people were doing those things. But it also shows men competing for women.

I believe the only reason that people say men didn't have to cater to women's desires is so that women could play victim.

Shoddy-Donut-9339 · 2022-12-03T06:56:11+00:00

I have studied 1600s Puritan New England. Puritan women did not have to marry men they did not like.

People commenting don’t know history and have an exaggerated view of the degree to which women were property. Most of the world and history had women having veto power over who would be their husband.

Additional_Speech164 · 2022-12-16T02:51:08+00:00

Always needed to be deserable. I’d say more so 60 years ago bc women had to pair up with one pretty much .

Title	(Q4All)When did men first have to be desirable/likable
Author	MasterTeacher123
Upvotes	35
Comments	156
Date	December 2, 2022 2:36 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/zanv9r/q4allwhen_did_men_first_have_to_be/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/q4allwhen-did-men-first-have-to-be.1143211 https://theredarchive.com/post/1143211

Comments