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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> The same patriarchal cultural BS about what it means to be a real woman also exists as a pressure against men, it just leads to a different set of insecurities.

I think that's a false equivalence. I'm hoping not to lose my hair, but I also kind of don't give a shit. I didn't grow up with society telling me how important it was to "look my best so I feel my best!" How often do you think Bill Gates thinks about his liver spots? John McCain probably hasn't thought of his hairline in decades. Because society really does not give a shit what men look like, unless they're in one of the few fields where looking good is part of their job.

The closest correspondence is maybe with the focus on guys being good at sports. Yeah, that kind of sucked in middle school, but it's been two decades since anyone cared whether I could make a basket. Heck, even if I was great at basketball now, nobody would give a shit.

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The closest correspondence is men being financially successful, along with all the skills and status symbols that entails.

Notice that we're providing free content marketing for an organization whose value proposition is "we'll help you get rich". Men are not immune at all.

Not remotely similar. Men have pressure to be employed, but there is a ton of acceptance and even glorification of average men with average jobs. There is nothing shameful and even something honorable in being an “average Joe.” Contrast with how we treat average looking women. We don’t say “you’re average looking and that’s fine.” We say “everyone is beautiful.” Thats not acceptance, it’s misdirection. That’s not how we treat men. Nobody would say to men: “everyone is rich.” That’d be stupid and untrue. But with women we rely on misdirection so we don’t have to confront the fact that we place so much emphasis on how women look.

I agree. My point was not that it is equivalent in scope (as the kinds of insecurities we foist on women are just brutal), but that I don't think that we would expect to see it come up as simply "half naked men".

I am also "overweight" (at the borderline for being clinically "obese", even), but it isn't something that haunts me every day and makes me question if I will ever be valued as a person again when I look in a mirror the same way we do with women.

Maybe to you, but the younger generation is different.

My cousin is a psychiatrist at a college, who has wishes there was a cure to baldness because so many young men become suicidal from balding.

The social media generation values looks very very highly.

This is not entirely true. Look at the stats for tall men getting promoted, expecting higher salaries over the course of their lifetime, etc. Height is one metric that men are subconsciously judged by, for better or worse, despite having nothing to do with actual leadership skills. Our base instincts still influence us as organisms.

There's an entire episode of the Simpsons premised on Homer getting his hair back and being promoted as a result:

https://youtu.be/XxQX4sh9VqE?t=157

Sure, it's a cartoon, but it's funny because it's true.

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