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Comment by cjohnson318 | Hacker News Reader

> Especially a problem because for almost all men a career and supporting family (maybe the hardest thing to figure out in life) is non optional...

What do you mean? Of course those are optional. If you don't want a career, you're not going to have one. If you don't want to get married and support a family, then you don't have to.

I mean, "saddle up to a breadwinner" is an extremely demeaning thing to say about a whole class of people. The reality is that men dominate all desirable, successful professions, so the probability of a man "saddling up" to a woman that makes significantly more than him is very small.

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Without a career or at least some sort of good job, most men are extremely unattractive as long term partners for women. They can't just find a wife to support them while they look after the kids. So they'll end up without a career and without a family, which can be a very sad existence. For women, families are easier to come by regardless of career status.

Imagine some people retire in peace at 50. What a sad, sad, pathetic existence :)

Retirement is often sad and pathetic.

Exactly. I am almost 50 myself. Retire and do what? Wait do die? Drink wine all day and wait to die?

There isn't much to me that is worth doing that wouldn't produce some kind of income.

Still so much I want to do yet, I don't have time for retirement.

Why retire at all? Depending on what you want to do, why not just do it for as long as you can?

Ride bicycles and/or motorcycles. Travel. Hike. Read. Learn things. Volunteer. Cooking is fun. Gardening as well.

I'm at a loss for how people can get bored and I don't even game or watch much in the way of movies or television. I think for some people they get attuned to work so much that they don't remember what life is like without it.

Totally agree. I don’t think I’ve been bored since I was a teenager. Every day I think to myself, all the things I could do with extra time in the day, if I didn’t have to work for a living. I am counting down the days until I retire! My nightmare actually is I die the day after I retire, just as I’m getting ready to start living my life!

Have you actually experienced a long period (year or more) with no obligations like work or school? It's much easier to be motivated when you're busy than when there's no real need for your effort or deadline for anything. I know some people manage great and have very active retirements but some just fade into passivity. Keep an eye out for the danger warned by John Mellencamp - "Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone".

>Have you actually experienced a long period (year or more) with no obligations like work or school?

I have. And have had no problems filling it with the above activities. My folks are retired and don't seem to be having much trouble finding creative projects and enjoyable things to do, like hiking and discovering new things.

Honestly I thought my dad would be a prime candidate for the type who gets so used to chasing the rabbit that they have no idea what to do once they retire. I'm glad to see that isn't the case.

Fantastic. I'm pretty sure I'm the wrong type myself and it's a bit of a worry. Hobbies are a lot more exciting when I don't have time for them.

> Every day I think to myself, all the things I could do with extra time in the day, if I didn’t have to work for a living.

I think about stuff like this too, but then I remember how my existing hobbies are already funded by my job.

Potentially demeaning nomenclature aside, do men and women have a differential opportunity to [better phrase], and if not, is this fair?

And while it might be nice for the men who dominate all desirable, successful professions, does this help the median man? They're all individuals, after all.

Based on my experience, I do not believe women have a better or easier "differential opportunity" when it comes to finding a partner and starting a family than men. I think "everything is easier for women because they're sexy" is an old trope that should be put to rest. Women on the whole do not want to "be sexy" any more, or less, than men do. I think women want to be taken seriously, and on their own terms, just like men.

> And while it might be nice for the men who dominate all desirable, successful professions, does this help the median man? They're all individuals, after all.

No, it doesn't. The fact that Jeff Bezos is a man or a woman does not affect my life at all. But, as a man, I have an easier time networking and working with other men in my field.

>think "everything is easier for women because they're sexy" is an old trope

Pretending that this is a trope is harmful to discussion. Women can easily make it to 30yo without ever personally having to deal with solving any problems they have if they are pretty.

This does not however mean women don't have legit problems. However the gap of assistance options men have vs women is incredibly vast.

Men are not even helped if they are hot. My wife will often not acknowledge the physical qualities of men she thinks little of. As if they are not hot just because they are assholes. Women are strange like that often. Men might decide a woman is not as hot as she is crazy but they will not simply pretend she is not hot.

Newsflash: the majority of women are not pretty, the same way most men are not attractive, this is why attractive people stand out in society, and we put them on billboards and in movies.

What gap of assistance options are you talking about? What class of women are benefiting from this? Seriously, a lot of women on Bourbon Street would like to know.

>majority of women are not pretty

This is not true for women under 30yo. Men overwhelming rate women as attractive for the under 30yo demographic. Upwards of 80% of women are "attractive" to men. Look up the okcupid studies or others if you are really curious.

You are going to have to back up men dominate all desirable successful professions… more women doctors are being produced than men for instance

Here's an excerpt from the first hit on Google for "percentage of fortune 500 companies run by women".

> During the first quarter of 2021, 41 women will lead Fortune 500 companies. That’s just 8.2 percent, but an improvement from the 33 companies in 2019 and 24 in 2018. Going back 20 years, there were just two companies on the list that were run by women, according to Fortune.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/record-number...

There's more women doctors, but that percentage hovers around 35%, which is about the same as the number of women in leadership positions in U.S. federal and state government.

Women constitute the majority of both medical students and law students in the United States. See https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/press-releases/majority-u... and https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2019/03/pisarcik-women-out...

Although that won't necessarily translate to a majority of practitioners because women are much more likely to suspend or leave a career for family.

There's a similar, albeit trailing, trend for business school. https://www.mba.com/information-and-news/research-and-data/w...

That's purely a US figure. In western Europe, 60% of medical graduate are women (It's almost 66% in my country). Then more women drop out of this carrer path because they can, not because they are forced out. If I take a personal example, when studying at my university (in the top 15 QS global ranking), I had 6 girl friends that studied different fields, from physics to material science. Only one of them is still an engineer today. All by choice are now, yoga teachers, home consultant, mom at home, school teacher, etc. For my male friends maybe one decided to do something completely unrelated. I'm getting more and more suspicious about this world (at least in Europe) is unequal because of men. Women are making choice too.

One day we'll wake up and realize we've been groomed into an oppressed position by women while being shamed and accused of this very same crime hehehe.

That'd be funny in 2000 years to see the woke crowd fight for men's equal right to be trophy husband and yoga teachers too.

Groomed and oppressed by having greater opportunities and resources. This idea of male victimhood is completely outside of reality.

Did you really just call out the parent comment for being demeaning when you yourself are sitting here saying that women, as a group, choose undesirable and unsuccessful professions? Please stop.

I did not say that "women, as a group, choose undesirable and unsuccessful professions". I would say that as a group, women are doing the best they can, it is just that men tend to have greater opportunities than women, even though the capabilities of women and men are comparable. I believe that women have a harder, longer road to professional success in our society, and that this is plainly evident.

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