If you are taking advice from a woman on how to be a man you're gonna have a bad time.

In general, especially when it comes to romance, women kind of indicate things with language rather than saying what they actually mean. Understanding how to interpret this is a very difficult skill, if you don't have it you're best of just ignoring them most of the time.

Curious to hear from someone who actually read the entire article.

I think there are some good bits and pieces there.

While the other commentator is unnecessarily toxic they seem correct. You don’t ask a fish how to catch fish - you ask a fisherman.

Some glaring issues in the article:

> Yet not everyone is ready to listen to men

Nobody ever listened. Men seized power and told others how to do things. Ideally these are good, honorable men who care about their people. Noblesse oblige, etc. I don’t mean to sound harsh here - these kind of leaders will naturally attract followers, despite how “toxic” my description sounds.

> Men are built to be strong and use that strength for physical protection

This is one aspect of it. There’s also a major non physical component that parallels the physical - men should confident, aggressive, bold, independent, etc. to some degree. This is why men are by and large leaders (and no female lead society has ever really amounted to anything). Leaving these out is a key misunderstanding that is evident later on in the article.

> in contrast, there is little room left for warriors and combatants

There was always only the room you made for yourself. That’s a key part of being a man. It’s no different now, outside of increased pushback from modern society.

> women can provide for themselves

Not really. The state provides the things women physically can’t (protection, dangerous jobs, etc). We’ve replaced men with the state (via other men). Millions of men pay taxes so women can have protection without a man. Not claiming one is better than the other.

The author is pretty decent at describing certain categories of men, but the solutions are all rather lacking. The majority can be solved by “manning up”, and some are unsolvable (some men are just not fit for society - it’s why there’s not many female geniuses nor jack the rippers). Go build the life you want. That’s the ultimate privilege and curse of being a man. You may be ostracized, but you have to live by your principles. There will be bad times, but you only lose when you give up.

I’ll also say there’s a missing cultural component here. Diversity causes stratification in society, and makes it even harder to determine what those principles are. Try to live near people who look like you. Read old books by people who looked like you. Theres a lot of wisdom and strength to be found in your history.

Surprised to see so many people who dislike the article. The important background hum to this piece is that she's dating men in a place where the male-female ratio is in her favor. It's also a pressure cooker environment where the men often judge themselves against some of the richest people in human history.

So on one hand she gets to be more picky; on the other, there is a larger share of men likely to have status anxiety.