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Comment by peepeepoopoo3 | Hacker News Reader

Surely two thirds, and rising, of young men being socially disenfranchised is a societal problem that should be addressed above the individual level, no? In the 2000's there was a lot of public outreach about men's unrealistic standards for women, but we never had the same discussion about women's unrealistic standards for men.

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If young men are lacking in skills (whether social skills, style or hygiene), teach them. We're already holding them in jail-like conditions at unhealthy schedules for 8 hours a day in what we call "school", surely we can find time to teach them those skills.

If it's a physical "ugliness" issue, double-down on existing efforts to reduce obesity and unhealthy lifestyles, and for everything else, easier (subsidized?) access to plastic surgery will definitely help. Of course, talking about plastic surgery is premature when the country can't even guarantee affordable access to life-critical healthcare, so that has to be solved too.

Poverty is also a major problem that should be addressed (for many other reasons beyond young men's dating prospects) and would make all the other problems easier to solve.

The policy solution to men's unrealistic standards for women was to educate them about realistic standards, not to mold women into TV supermodels. With that in mind, is it reasonable to expect the entire population of young men to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to gain several additional inches of height, a high status job, and the magnetic personality of a late night talk show host?

At this point the heterosexual relationships discussion has become so poisoned that I don't think further activism of any kind is likely to help. In terms of constructive solutions, I think what we need are people pioneering new "curated dating spaces" with explicit norms, events for underserved singles with enforced rules that represent some sort of negotiated compromise between what single men want and what single women want. Don't compete with dating apps, that's low-margin and has entrenched incumbents. Partner with nightlife establishments to run events, singles night with a theme of some kind and a reputation system for attendees, perhaps powered by matchmaking software. That's my take.

Agreed, but curious what your ideas would be to solve it?

It would be pretty difficult I think without some mandatory "relationships" education being implemented or something, which is a little too totalitarian for modern democracy I'd think.

Like I said above, there was a lot of very successful outreach targeting men about their body standards for women. This was meant to address systemic problems with eating disorders, depression, and suicide in the opposite sex. We would simply implement the same outreach aimed at women, with the intent of addressing similar social problems that men are currently facing. If we can have fat acceptance for women, then I'm sure we can manage something along the lines of "short acceptance" for men.

Start building trade schools. Lots of the guys who are young and having problems with women are the guys who don't go to college. We're short lots of trades people.. Carpenters, plumbers, electricians are in desperately short supply, and the kids who are 19 and don't want to do college would be much better suited for those jobs. Once you increase their income and give them a career, they're no longer the "guy playing video games all the time" and their desirability goes up, and a lot of parity is gained.

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