Humanities & Cultures

Helping others at the expense of yourself, your time, your emotional energy, etc. is what is often celebrated in men’s spaces. Women are allowed to celebrate themselves, their strength and their struggles in a way that is rarely afforded to men, likely because of power imbalances laid out by the author.

It feels like in the dating world, men are valued by what they can do and women are valued for what they are. The old trope of "Mom's going to be so happy I'm marrying a doctor" still applies in a lot of places. Conversely, a man is considered a success if he's dating a particularly attractive woman. You also see this in hetero couples where the woman makes significantly more than man, which can cause all kinds of internal and external friction.

While this is symptomatic of the power imbalance, we need to be able to have a conversation about it before we can start breaking that imbalance.

It leaves a really small needle to thread, or an exceptionally verbose and emotionally intelligent individual to thread it.

Absolutely. And not only would a column like that be painful to write, it wouldn't be very fun to read either.

I'd also add that men today are pretty fucking horrible. I'm a man and even I don't like being around them. If there was a dating column that threaded that needle I don't think most men would read it, and if they did they'd dismiss it as beta garbage.