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Comment by retskrad | Hacker News Reader

If people took a minute to put their phones away and looked around once in a while, they’d notice that males and females tend to self-segregate, with the vast majority of each gender spending time only with others of their own gender. This behaviour is constant in schools, parties, coffee shops, you name it. I’ve traveled extensively around the world, and I’ve observed the same patterns everywhere. Males and females lead drastically different lives. People act as if voicing these observations out loud automatically places you in the ‘incel’ category.

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I don’t know about “vast majority”. Mixed-gender friend groups are also very common, especially in larger metros. The two cultural shifts currently happening are 1. Loss of interest in “third spaces” (clubs, church) for mingling and 2. widening political divide between the genders.

Why is this flagged?

What is your point in relation to the article?

How would gender self-segregation be related to __rising__ rates of singledom?

I think the point he was getting at but failed to come around to was that men and women are different enough they don't actually want to spend time together all that much and historically just put up with it because of social pressure to get on the life path to raising a family and lack of access to casual sex. Sure, there's some mutual interests there that'll get them hanging out together but it's pretty minor overall.

There's no big reason for a man who's gotten good at online dating or a women who doesn't actively want kids to date seriously or settle down unless they just happen to run across someone who's perfect for them and wants to lock it in.

>historically just put up with it because of social pressure to get on the life path to raising a family and lack of access to casual sex.

For women it was also a fundamental question of literally living. Back when women were expected to be full-time housewives, women had to marry to quite literally not starve to death on the streets.

The advancement of gender equality to bring men and women, all mankind, to the same level of freedom and authority has undoubtedly played a significant role in the decline of romance and marriage.

That's a pretty odd take on history. You know women have always worked, right? Female life pre-20th century wasn't permanent housewifeing. They often worked from home in cottage industries, ran shops, took part in family owned businesses (often running the financial side) and many other jobs.

The reason there was pressure to raise a family - for both women and men - had nothing to do with gender equality. It was because there was no welfare state so people relied on their families and extended families to take care of them in old age and sickness.

The pressure to produce more humans was mostly to fuel the armies that need constant supply of young people to throw into the meat grinder; at least in the past centuries in Europe

You really think people chose to have children and raised them to satisfy military requirements?

While it may be sadly true that many young people died like that, that isn't why men and women have children.

If you were of high class like the nobility or mercantile, you had children to continue your powerful bloodline. You also married to sign off on alliances and cooperatives. Entire wars have been waged over familial ties and successors.

If you were of low class like the peasantry, you had children to have enough hands to till the fields.

If you were of middle class somewhere in-between, you had children for both of the above each to lesser degrees.

In the modern era there's simply less and less practical reasons to have children, not to mention the costs of childcare and rearing. On the bright side, at least we have less instances of war being waged because Lord Dickus Bigus wants to pork out on a lady and screw everyone else.

Not “the people” but those in power in society created the cultural framework that incentivised people to get a lot of kids

A meaningful life is a “big” reason to mate. Living a life in service to worthy people and to be served in turn.

I had a training marriage that ended amicably, and since then have been married 34 years, almost. I live with my wife, grown son, and his wife. My son just celebrate his 10 year anniversary.

We’re not all shallow libertines out here.

> “People act as if voicing these observations out loud automatically places you in the ‘incel’ category.”

Quite the strawman. Does anybody claim that?

Women would certainly agree that social circles everywhere tend to be genderized. And part of the reason is a vicious cycle: men are not used to spending time with women, so they easily misunderstand the situation and get sexual or romantic ideas that are not reciprocated. And having to sort out this unwanted attention and the resulting emotions makes women even less likely to want to spend time with men.

There’s a reason why “the gay best friend” is a trope in American fiction featuring women. It’s not because gays are feminine — it’s because they don’t bombard women with their unprocessed feelings.

If you want to fix the situation, stop rambling about incels and start thinking of ways to get boys and girls to spend more time together at all ages. American parents still seem to tend to treat boys and girls as separate species.

What?

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