I’m going to try actually finishing and posting this comment instead of deleting it halfway through writing, because these kinds of issues are always a black hole of endless discourse. Anyway: I...
Exemplary
I’m going to try actually finishing and posting this comment instead of deleting it halfway through writing, because these kinds of issues are always a black hole of endless discourse.
Anyway: I did not like this article.
Immediately, anything attempting to analyse gen-z is going to raise some alarms, it does seem like we’ve been designated a worse fate than millennials: our media criticism comes in the form of well-formatted political opinion pieces rather than the “are millennials ruining x!?” listicles that our predecessors were subjected to. Sure we’re getting more “serious” consideration, but the downside is that people might start to believe this is more than one persons experience with - what seems to be - a bunch of very poorly adjusted people who happen to be gen-Zers. Why are we case studies all of a sudden, when is it our turn to ruin… coffee, or something?
Heterosexuality has been deemed dangerous for as long as I can remember. In the 1990s, before I was born, an influential faction of feminists had already declared heterosexual sex and especially marriage to be marred by men’s structural advantage over women.
I nearly put down the article in paragraph one, because I expected this to be a “friendly-fire” situation. But I persisted and the feeling did not go away, I could never quite tell how the author felt about feminism, or the “doge boys” that they interacted with…
it’s become a baseline assumption that heterosexual women are beleaguered, suffering from a condition not entirely of their own choosing but still incriminating for any right-thinking person: being attracted to ever faultful men.
This is perhaps the case but the author (purposefully?) leaves out that this is more or less the same for men, isn’t the whole conceit of traditional sexism that women are inferior? I find it odd that the author spends so much time bemoaning how much feminism has “ruined” heterosexuality.
Sure enough, in 2024, before and after the election, a rash of splashy journalistic dispatches proclaimed that now was the time for women to cut ties with men completely: the New York Times and the Guardian profiled young women going “boysober,” while others counseled “evidence-based” lesbianism, or joining the gender-segregationist 4B movement originating in South Korea. The campaign continued in 2025 with viral essays like Jean Garnett’s “The Trouble with Wanting Men,” for the New York Times Magazine, in which the author and her female friends commiserate about the unsuitability of even the “good men” in their social circles, and fantasize that they could renounce dating those who belong—no matter how apologetically—to the “tainted category of ‘men.’”
Forgive me for continuing to copy and paste large swaths of the article, but re-read these examples. With the exception of 4B, which seems to never have breached Korea (and of which there is the insane 🤏-related counterpart), these are all seemingly minor things. Counting articles about “viral” movements isn’t the greatest way to quantify real change in the real world, it only really proves that gender wars make good ad revenue (what does this say about the author?)
It’s about here in my comment that I consider deleting the whole thing and moving on with my life, but I made a promise to myself and I’m going to keep it.
In my experience with gen-z, of which I am just about in the middle of, my conclusion is: none of this “heteropessimism” is actually present among people who interact with the real world. This is a purely online pseudo-political issue. I’ve known people who are extremely left leaning, and people who are concerningly right leaning (showing my own bias with that statement, sue me) and nobody genuinely thinks like this. Everybody dates and has sex and breaks up and says “I love you” like every other society in history and it’s messy, because obviously it’s going to be messy. The only people I know that have dating experiences like the ones described, are the ones that exclusively use dating apps, and don’t talk to anyone IRL. Everyone needs to put the fucking phones down.
I think this is an over-simplified view of how traditional patriarchal society views women, particularly in the context of romantic and sexual relationships, on your part. Viewing women as...
This is perhaps the case but the author (purposefully?) leaves out that this is more or less the same for men, isn’t the whole conceit of traditional sexism that women are inferior?
I think this is an over-simplified view of how traditional patriarchal society views women, particularly in the context of romantic and sexual relationships, on your part. Viewing women as desirable in that context is absolutely a part of traditional sexism, as is viewing women as innately superior at certain things (like chores, caring for children, etc.) Sure, you do constantly get the "ball and chain" style of men complaining about their wives, but I don't think traditional sexism has anything that quite parallels the "if only I weren't attracted to men"-style seen from women's discourse relatively recently. Traditional sexism is, if anything, too on board with being attracted to women.
That said, I similarly didn't like this article much. The author seems to enjoy hanging out with a great number of insufferable people on a regular basis, and I don't like drawing equivalencies between women joking about cutting themselves off from men -- something that does not remotely correspond to any rise in actual political lesbianism -- and right-wing insistence on shoving women back into traditional gender-role-based limitations. I didn't find the author's description of left wing spaces all that familiar or their description of their problems compelling. There's not a hint of discussion of the actual problems with things like 4B and radfem-inspired rhetoric in left wing spaces, which is the gender essentialism and in particular transphobia throughout, but based on how the rest of this piece is written, I doubt the author actually hangs out in left-wing spaces of the same extremity as the right-wing dpaces she frequents. Even from just the context of this piece, the idea that left-wing negative attitudes towards men are remotely equivalent in their strength or consequences of right-wing negative attitudes towards women is laughable.
Not arguing with you about liking or not liking the essay as written: thank you for sharing your view, and on reflection, by the mid point of the essay, I had already forgotten that the author...
Not arguing with you about liking or not liking the essay as written: thank you for sharing your view, and on reflection, by the mid point of the essay, I had already forgotten that the author made a disclaimer that she's talking about her own circle, and her examples are not representative of millenial / Z gen at large. Because like you said, this blends into a barrage of "blame gen Z" articles.
If you'd like, though, I want to talk a bit about 4B overall outside of the context of her article. But if that feels argumentative, please do not feel obligated to read / engage
With the exception of 4B, which seems to never have breached Korea [...] Counting articles about “viral” movements isn’t the greatest way to quantify real change in the real world
Incidentally, there is a feminist group in Mainland China that used to hang out on /r/DoubanGooseGroup (gone private? They migrated to Reddit due to brigades and doxxing and might've moved on again)
A sort of witches vs patriarchy community exists in every culture, I would imagine, see also Lysistrata in ancient Greece. Anyway, the 4B attitude unmistakably exists in the world beyond rage bait articles, even if on slight year over year increase rather than an alarming takeover, and even if not an organized movement with memberships. We can see statistics on teens delaying first sexual intercourse, decline in dating rates, number of sexual partners per month, marriage/common law rates and childbirth.
So not everyone, but a growing very minority. And yes the solution is nearly certainly what you suggested: put the phone down, talk to people IRL.
You read and quote literature instead of hate speech; you approach women with a friendly gesture and ignore childish taunts from boys; you talk to older women and learn about why #metoo shouldn't...
If you’re just a well-meaning young person who is not extraordinary in any way, what are you supposed to do?”
You read and quote literature instead of hate speech; you approach women with a friendly gesture and ignore childish taunts from boys; you talk to older women and learn about why #metoo shouldn't cause you anxiety; you appreciate someone who is there for you in the worst time of your life and make a commitment to be there for theirs.
It seems that women who have observed, and accepted, that sex must precede emotional attachment in dating use the concept of “yearning” to barter for any sign of emotional life from their lovers at all.
Perhaps we lack the vocabulary for this kind of "sex is for emotionally attached people" arrangement that is at once ancient and modern: not defined by religious rules or social structure like a marriage or betrothal, but not a one off physical encounter or rudderless situationship either. Demisexuality? My body is sacred to me for no external reasons other than its inherit and embodied sacredness.
They tell me they want a traditional woman who is financially independent
Short skirt / Long Jacket (Cake, 2001). A traditional partnership is one of codependency where duties and privileges are divided, even if unequally. If a woman is financially independent, there is very little most men can offer to appeal to the traditionalists. Most people forget that throughout ancient times and in most cultures, the women did not choose tradition, and also being an old independent crone living in the forest with cats and a cauldron is also "since time immemorial" traditional. For an independent woman to choose a man is extremely extremely edge case in rare cultures like the Mosuo (wiki) where it's traditionally expected for the men to raise his sisters' children and he has no paternal rights to his biological offspring, if she chooses to disclose. I doubt most of these trad men who want trad women are okay to give up their paternal societal powers.
The host, a successful entrepreneur in his forties, broke the silence with jovial grace: “I’ll speak only for myself: personal deficiencies.”
12/15 men. 11/15 single. 13/15 late thirties to forties. And only this host guy felt confident enough to confess personal responsibility on why he's contributing to the collapse of Western civilization?
In fairness to boys, it is bewildering out there. Women got school and job training so now we're doing the same thing they have been doing, that we'd been forbidden to do for ourselves. Meanwhile there isn't K-12 education for men on how to be feminists and how to be a good friend and how to reject childish women blaming. Maybe our society, if we don't want birthrate to collapse, should do more than job training during the school years but to feature "how to make friends and take a genuine interest in fellow human beings" as heavily as we do more heavily than maths and sciences. Maybe we can call it something like, just throwing that out there, Humanology or Peoplities
Yes! I'm all for kids learning to read, write and do a little bit of counting, but K-12 school should be for learning real skills that will serve you for life: social skills are the most important...
should do more than job training during the school years but to feature "how to make friends and take a genuine interest in fellow human beings" as heavily as we do more heavily than maths and sciences
Yes! I'm all for kids learning to read, write and do a little bit of counting, but K-12 school should be for learning real skills that will serve you for life: social skills are the most important skills, followed by keeping curiosity, a lust for exploration and quite a bit of critical thinking.
small, confusing, typo
My body is scared to me for no external reasons other than its inherit and embodied sacredness.
I think the bolded word should be "sacred". Took me a bit to figure it out, but I'm also really tired atm.
I don't blame teachers at all, I blame society putting insane demands on the parents and for life to be so crushing without a college degree (or even with these days) both parents and kids are too...
I don't blame teachers at all, I blame society putting insane demands on the parents and for life to be so crushing without a college degree (or even with these days) both parents and kids are too scared to spend any time developing a whole person instead of job training.
I've heard for so many years kids need to be socialised in school etc, but some kids quietly suffer through K-12 without picking up these skills passively. Or they suffer some horrific setback like bullying or panic or come out of the crucible having learned wrong ways of socializing or having traumatic biases deeply ingrained. It's not enough to simply throw a bunch of developing, Tate watching, hormone raging minds together.
misspelling yes thanks!
I would love for that to be a typo haha, but I seem to struggle with that one, *calm/clam*, and *seperate/separate*. When I stare at the words for a long time I might be able to pick out the correct one, but 2 out of 10 times it'll still be wrong after staring because my ADHD brain has cumulatively tried to choose the correct one so many times *both* look correct / report as correct. *Sacred* and *Calm* at least I can sost of sound out which is the correct twin I'm looking for, but most of the time I find myself having to google *Separate*.
It's two As cut in half by an R. Par as in pull something apart and the discomfort of having to part.
Or is it three E's not touching, [insert other rationale I don't want to reinforce], my traitorous Brain whispers.
Oh, I did not mean to blame teachers. I blame politicians (being populistic rather than leaning on science and better ideology) and everyone voting for them. Most teachers just do the best they...
Oh, I did not mean to blame teachers. I blame politicians (being populistic rather than leaning on science and better ideology) and everyone voting for them.
Most teachers just do the best they can under the circumstances.
Thanks, I will try to use the neutral "misspelling" in the future as "typo" or "autocorrect", etc also places some kind of blame on the creator. I don't really care about that, I just care about making the text more legible.
I know I should/could put time into not caring as much about spelling, etc, but it does seem to be a core thing for me. I still can't stand my kids very dyslexic texts after over 10 years of reasonable writing.
Maybe I shouldn't engage with spelling and language here on tildes, but I don't know. To me, both ways are accessibility friendly so it's hard to know.
I think there is a typo in your post regarding "Short Skirt/Long Jacket." That song was released in 2001, not 2021. You had me do a double-take because I was certain I listened to that well before...
I think there is a typo in your post regarding "Short Skirt/Long Jacket." That song was released in 2001, not 2021. You had me do a double-take because I was certain I listened to that well before the pandemic and I wasn't even certain if Cake was still actively making music (they are), but I doubted myself for a brief moment.
I felt the same way. I suppose part of it is that I’m just, uh, not heterosexual, so in this I am largely an outside observer. In the gay community there’s often a kind of meme of “are the...
I felt the same way. I suppose part of it is that I’m just, uh, not heterosexual, so in this I am largely an outside observer.
In the gay community there’s often a kind of meme of “are the straights ok?” which is employed when we encounter too-enthusiastic conformity to heterosexual or gender stereotypes, to the point of being unhealthy or causing distress. An example might be joking about trapping someone in an unwanted marriage or a man refusing to add anything to a black coffee that he doesn’t enjoy because black coffee is “manly”.
Anyway, reading this article (which I wasn’t big on) made me feel like these straights are absolutely not ok. I could feel the lack of sincerity in a lot of it, in the way that men and women talked about each other. It was all so, so, deeply unromantic. It would have made me pity them, if so many of them weren’t openly misogynistic and thus essentially the architects of their own suffering & the suffering of others.
This was a great read. It's refreshing to hear at least one of the subjects in this essay look inward or at least admit to an inward recognition on the causes for their romantic isolation as...
This was a great read.
It's refreshing to hear at least one of the subjects in this essay look inward or at least admit to an inward recognition on the causes for their romantic isolation as opposed to the externalization found in reactionary discourse to stereotypes and anecdotes that enforce what I feel is the generalized acceptance in the circles I find myself in of shifting responsibility away from the self for all shortcomings. It's frustrating to hear that and how it contributes to Doomerism itself, and nice to find at least someone in the circles the author finds herself in that can break the trend for even a moment.
The writer is quite talented, that was an engrossing read. Loved the quote at the end: But... if this writer's experience is typical, then holy shit I feel bad for single/young people now. If...
The writer is quite talented, that was an engrossing read. Loved the quote at the end:
“‘Bad times! Hard times!’: People say this. Let us live good lives, and the times are good. We make our times; such as we are, such are the times.”
But... if this writer's experience is typical, then holy shit I feel bad for single/young people now. If civilizational collapse occurs when the complexity of a society outweighs its utility, and fucking/procreating is too much trouble to bother with any more, then we're pretty boned.
I’m going to try actually finishing and posting this comment instead of deleting it halfway through writing, because these kinds of issues are always a black hole of endless discourse.
Anyway: I did not like this article.
Immediately, anything attempting to analyse gen-z is going to raise some alarms, it does seem like we’ve been designated a worse fate than millennials: our media criticism comes in the form of well-formatted political opinion pieces rather than the “are millennials ruining x!?” listicles that our predecessors were subjected to. Sure we’re getting more “serious” consideration, but the downside is that people might start to believe this is more than one persons experience with - what seems to be - a bunch of very poorly adjusted people who happen to be gen-Zers. Why are we case studies all of a sudden, when is it our turn to ruin… coffee, or something?
I nearly put down the article in paragraph one, because I expected this to be a “friendly-fire” situation. But I persisted and the feeling did not go away, I could never quite tell how the author felt about feminism, or the “doge boys” that they interacted with…
This is perhaps the case but the author (purposefully?) leaves out that this is more or less the same for men, isn’t the whole conceit of traditional sexism that women are inferior? I find it odd that the author spends so much time bemoaning how much feminism has “ruined” heterosexuality.
Forgive me for continuing to copy and paste large swaths of the article, but re-read these examples. With the exception of 4B, which seems to never have breached Korea (and of which there is the insane 🤏-related counterpart), these are all seemingly minor things. Counting articles about “viral” movements isn’t the greatest way to quantify real change in the real world, it only really proves that gender wars make good ad revenue (what does this say about the author?)
It’s about here in my comment that I consider deleting the whole thing and moving on with my life, but I made a promise to myself and I’m going to keep it.
In my experience with gen-z, of which I am just about in the middle of, my conclusion is: none of this “heteropessimism” is actually present among people who interact with the real world. This is a purely online pseudo-political issue. I’ve known people who are extremely left leaning, and people who are concerningly right leaning (showing my own bias with that statement, sue me) and nobody genuinely thinks like this. Everybody dates and has sex and breaks up and says “I love you” like every other society in history and it’s messy, because obviously it’s going to be messy. The only people I know that have dating experiences like the ones described, are the ones that exclusively use dating apps, and don’t talk to anyone IRL. Everyone needs to put the fucking phones down.
I think this is an over-simplified view of how traditional patriarchal society views women, particularly in the context of romantic and sexual relationships, on your part. Viewing women as desirable in that context is absolutely a part of traditional sexism, as is viewing women as innately superior at certain things (like chores, caring for children, etc.) Sure, you do constantly get the "ball and chain" style of men complaining about their wives, but I don't think traditional sexism has anything that quite parallels the "if only I weren't attracted to men"-style seen from women's discourse relatively recently. Traditional sexism is, if anything, too on board with being attracted to women.
That said, I similarly didn't like this article much. The author seems to enjoy hanging out with a great number of insufferable people on a regular basis, and I don't like drawing equivalencies between women joking about cutting themselves off from men -- something that does not remotely correspond to any rise in actual political lesbianism -- and right-wing insistence on shoving women back into traditional gender-role-based limitations. I didn't find the author's description of left wing spaces all that familiar or their description of their problems compelling. There's not a hint of discussion of the actual problems with things like 4B and radfem-inspired rhetoric in left wing spaces, which is the gender essentialism and in particular transphobia throughout, but based on how the rest of this piece is written, I doubt the author actually hangs out in left-wing spaces of the same extremity as the right-wing dpaces she frequents. Even from just the context of this piece, the idea that left-wing negative attitudes towards men are remotely equivalent in their strength or consequences of right-wing negative attitudes towards women is laughable.
Not arguing with you about liking or not liking the essay as written: thank you for sharing your view, and on reflection, by the mid point of the essay, I had already forgotten that the author made a disclaimer that she's talking about her own circle, and her examples are not representative of millenial / Z gen at large. Because like you said, this blends into a barrage of "blame gen Z" articles.
If you'd like, though, I want to talk a bit about 4B overall outside of the context of her article. But if that feels argumentative, please do not feel obligated to read / engage
Incidentally, there is a feminist group in Mainland China that used to hang out on /r/DoubanGooseGroup (gone private? They migrated to Reddit due to brigades and doxxing and might've moved on again)
A sort of witches vs patriarchy community exists in every culture, I would imagine, see also Lysistrata in ancient Greece. Anyway, the 4B attitude unmistakably exists in the world beyond rage bait articles, even if on slight year over year increase rather than an alarming takeover, and even if not an organized movement with memberships. We can see statistics on teens delaying first sexual intercourse, decline in dating rates, number of sexual partners per month, marriage/common law rates and childbirth.
So not everyone, but a growing very minority. And yes the solution is nearly certainly what you suggested: put the phone down, talk to people IRL.
You read and quote literature instead of hate speech; you approach women with a friendly gesture and ignore childish taunts from boys; you talk to older women and learn about why #metoo shouldn't cause you anxiety; you appreciate someone who is there for you in the worst time of your life and make a commitment to be there for theirs.
Perhaps we lack the vocabulary for this kind of "sex is for emotionally attached people" arrangement that is at once ancient and modern: not defined by religious rules or social structure like a marriage or betrothal, but not a one off physical encounter or rudderless situationship either. Demisexuality? My body is sacred to me for no external reasons other than its inherit and embodied sacredness.
Short skirt / Long Jacket (Cake, 2001). A traditional partnership is one of codependency where duties and privileges are divided, even if unequally. If a woman is financially independent, there is very little most men can offer to appeal to the traditionalists. Most people forget that throughout ancient times and in most cultures, the women did not choose tradition, and also being an old independent crone living in the forest with cats and a cauldron is also "since time immemorial" traditional. For an independent woman to choose a man is extremely extremely edge case in rare cultures like the Mosuo (wiki) where it's traditionally expected for the men to raise his sisters' children and he has no paternal rights to his biological offspring, if she chooses to disclose. I doubt most of these trad men who want trad women are okay to give up their paternal societal powers.
12/15 men. 11/15 single. 13/15 late thirties to forties. And only this host guy felt confident enough to confess personal responsibility on why he's contributing to the collapse of Western civilization?
In fairness to boys, it is bewildering out there. Women got school and job training so now we're doing the same thing they have been doing, that we'd been forbidden to do for ourselves. Meanwhile there isn't K-12 education for men on how to be feminists and how to be a good friend and how to reject childish women blaming. Maybe our society, if we don't want birthrate to collapse, should do more than job training during the school years but to feature "how to make friends and take a genuine interest in fellow human beings"
as heavily as we domore heavily than maths and sciences. Maybe we can call it something like, just throwing that out there, Humanology or Peoplitiestypos/small
Yes! I'm all for kids learning to read, write and do a little bit of counting, but K-12 school should be for learning real skills that will serve you for life: social skills are the most important skills, followed by keeping curiosity, a lust for exploration and quite a bit of critical thinking.
small, confusing, typo
I think the bolded word should be "sacred". Took me a bit to figure it out, but I'm also really tired atm.
I don't blame teachers at all, I blame society putting insane demands on the parents and for life to be so crushing without a college degree (or even with these days) both parents and kids are too scared to spend any time developing a whole person instead of job training.
I've heard for so many years kids need to be socialised in school etc, but some kids quietly suffer through K-12 without picking up these skills passively. Or they suffer some horrific setback like bullying or panic or come out of the crucible having learned wrong ways of socializing or having traumatic biases deeply ingrained. It's not enough to simply throw a bunch of developing, Tate watching, hormone raging minds together.
misspelling yes thanks!
I would love for that to be a typo haha, but I seem to struggle with that one, *calm/clam*, and *seperate/separate*. When I stare at the words for a long time I might be able to pick out the correct one, but 2 out of 10 times it'll still be wrong after staring because my ADHD brain has cumulatively tried to choose the correct one so many times *both* look correct / report as correct. *Sacred* and *Calm* at least I can sost of sound out which is the correct twin I'm looking for, but most of the time I find myself having to google *Separate*.It's two As cut in half by an R. Par as in pull something apart and the discomfort of having to part.
Or is it three E's not touching, [insert other rationale I don't want to reinforce], my traitorous Brain whispers.
Oh, I did not mean to blame teachers. I blame politicians (being populistic rather than leaning on science and better ideology) and everyone voting for them.
Most teachers just do the best they can under the circumstances.
Thanks, I will try to use the neutral "misspelling" in the future as "typo" or "autocorrect", etc also places some kind of blame on the creator. I don't really care about that, I just care about making the text more legible.
I know I should/could put time into not caring as much about spelling, etc, but it does seem to be a core thing for me. I still can't stand my kids very dyslexic texts after over 10 years of reasonable writing.
Maybe I shouldn't engage with spelling and language here on tildes, but I don't know. To me, both ways are accessibility friendly so it's hard to know.
I think there is a typo in your post regarding "Short Skirt/Long Jacket." That song was released in 2001, not 2021. You had me do a double-take because I was certain I listened to that well before the pandemic and I wasn't even certain if Cake was still actively making music (they are), but I doubted myself for a brief moment.
Yes definitely 2001, it's practically ancient and there was a whole flash animation (albinoBlackSheep?) and everything, thanks
I can't relate to the people in this article at all. They all seem very strange to me.
The people feel neurotic, which sounds right for DC, especially now.
I felt the same way. I suppose part of it is that I’m just, uh, not heterosexual, so in this I am largely an outside observer.
In the gay community there’s often a kind of meme of “are the straights ok?” which is employed when we encounter too-enthusiastic conformity to heterosexual or gender stereotypes, to the point of being unhealthy or causing distress. An example might be joking about trapping someone in an unwanted marriage or a man refusing to add anything to a black coffee that he doesn’t enjoy because black coffee is “manly”.
Anyway, reading this article (which I wasn’t big on) made me feel like these straights are absolutely not ok. I could feel the lack of sincerity in a lot of it, in the way that men and women talked about each other. It was all so, so, deeply unromantic. It would have made me pity them, if so many of them weren’t openly misogynistic and thus essentially the architects of their own suffering & the suffering of others.
This was a great read.
It's refreshing to hear at least one of the subjects in this essay look inward or at least admit to an inward recognition on the causes for their romantic isolation as opposed to the externalization found in reactionary discourse to stereotypes and anecdotes that enforce what I feel is the generalized acceptance in the circles I find myself in of shifting responsibility away from the self for all shortcomings. It's frustrating to hear that and how it contributes to Doomerism itself, and nice to find at least someone in the circles the author finds herself in that can break the trend for even a moment.
The writer is quite talented, that was an engrossing read. Loved the quote at the end:
But... if this writer's experience is typical, then holy shit I feel bad for single/young people now. If civilizational collapse occurs when the complexity of a society outweighs its utility, and fucking/procreating is too much trouble to bother with any more, then we're pretty boned.
... or not nearly boned enough, as it were.
🤣 I set em up you knock em down!