Agreed. The term partner is really not what men are looking for. We’re looking for a wife— take care of my house and children, be attractive and cook. If you’re intelligent more the better.
Speak for yourself! A partner is exactly what I want. I don't need a cook or a housekeeper; if I did, I'd hire one. I want to be part of a team of equals, or I'd rather be single.
I am not speaking hypothetically. It was a real problem for me when my ex-wife lost her job, gave up looking for another, and just... turned herself into a housewife. I could not relate to her anymore. This was not the issue which ultimately broke our marriage, but it certainly didn't help.
I really appreciate you speaking up. It means a lot to women to see men want more than an indentured servant/sex worker.
I'm really sorry to hear about your troubles with your ex-wife. I can imagine it could be really depressing/invalidating to lose a job and not know where to turn. Luckily, as a single person, we don't really have the option of not working so there's an energy and force behind finding a vocation.
I sometimes think in a different reality, I might enjoy teaching and raising children while my husband worked. It's a ton of work though and you don't really get any down time, which is hard.
I did this before when I was dating someone who had a son, but I also worked. I still found it very fulfilling.
When I was a teacher, I always found the kids who were the most grounded were the ones who had a stay-at-home dad.
I think it's nice for kids when one parent is there just for the child rearing.
Some random thoughts and musings, but it's really really tough when both people don't have interests outside the marriage.
You appear to be mistaking your personal preferences for universal human ideals. This is an easy mistake to make, as the things we want feel obvious and natural; it can be hard to imagine not wanting them, or wanting something contrary. It's OK to want whatever it is you want, but we're all different, and we really do want different things.
Of course I am - intentionally so! Who cares? You made a sweepingly broad assertion about the nature of male desire, which was simplistic and inadequate. I demonstrated as much by describing my own preferences, as several others here have done. The nature of my social bubble is irrelevant, because I made no claim beyond the bounds of my personal experience.
You're in a bubble, too, whether you see its boundaries or not. In order to speak meaningfully about what the "vast majority" of people want, we would need some actual research.
i don't want to analyze or criticize your feelings, but since i may face a similar situation, i'd like to explore how to avoid that for myself.
i do want my wife to be an equal too, but how can she be if she is not working like me?
a couple of thoughts come to mind: (these are random ideas, i don't know if they all make sense)
there is a school of thought that says that housework should be treated like any other respectable fulltime job.
like in a startup, there are fun tasks and boring gruntwork.
i am doing the programming work for the customers, which brings in the money and my businesspartner is managing the accounting, invoices and takes care of the office. we are saving the expense for a janitor, so we do cleanup ourselves, and since i am busy on the computer, it's mostly done by my partner (i remember reading about a CEO who said being a janitor was part of his duties)
so to translate that to a family, like a business, there are a number of things that need to be done. someone may be focusing on doing the work that brings in the money, and the other person is doing all those other things.
the point is, all those tasks are equally important for the success of a business as they are for a family. we would not consider a CEO to be less valued than the CTO, so why should the housewife be considered unequal to her money earning husband?
we are a team, where each of us is valued the same, but that doesn't mean we have to split the work equally too. instead everyone contributes according to their ability.
i think what your problem may have been that you simply were unprepared for the change and didn't know how to deal with it. i don't know how i am going to deal with that either, but at least i know it will most likely be happening so i'll do my best to prepare.
a few more thoughts of what could help to achive equality when one partner is not working:
make decisions together. especially about spending money. care for each others goals and interests outside of work and housework. in other words, take each other seriously, regardless of what the other is contributing. treat the housework as enabling your outside work, just like the CEO enables the CTO.
That's not true. Sure there are a lot of men that want a traditional wife to take care of the house, etc. But I'm not sure they are the majority of men in 2022. Lots of men out there certainly don't want or care if their wife is a homemaker. I, personally, and many people I know aren't particularly interested in that sort of wife and would prefer a "partner" that that has her own professional and personal life and goals equal to us.
It's so affirming to see men speak up and say they are not looking for a traditional housewife. Thank you for speaking up. I'm sure that this doesn't only impact me, but other women reading this.
You are woefully out of touch if you think that’s what the majority of men are not looking for and that’s just in the United States. Additionally a woman working does not automatically mean she doesn’t satisfy the other criteria.
Seeking those traits in women is hard-coded into men.
(Obviously there are exceptions - as with any rule - but do I really need to add this caveat ... ?)
I know that it's become the norm for 21st century pseudo-intellectuals to demand "scientific research" for every little thing in life. Fundamentally, you simply won't acknowledge certain self-evident realities for what they are, but I do - and that's where we differ. This is not to say those studies don't exist - I'm often surprised at studies that make me go "duh" because "that's what I've intuitively known all my life". Like some people wouldn't acknowledge the fact that men are inherently much more muscular than women had there not been studies on that. That's one such self-evident reality.
So I say: You go keep searching for studies! :)
Meanwhile I'm going to keep living in and by self-evident reality. Personally, I find that the predictive power of that is yet to be beaten!
Reverting to calling other people pseudo-intellectuals is really not helping this discussion.
How many men exist today? Saying 'Seeking those traits in women is hard-coded into men.' is not a 'little thing in life'. You're making a sweeping statement about billions of men.
What you're stating is your opinion based on what you experienced, which is a small sample size. Even if you met 10k men that showed those traits, doesn't mean it's hard coded into men.
And 'hard-coded' in what way? Hard-coded into our DNA or societal imprint (which means it's not hard-coded).
So I was interested in finding out what your statement is based on.
I regret finding myself in another one of those pointless internet debates but this is a subject I could write essays about so here we go I guess ...
Self-evident truths don't need to be based on anything because drum roll they are self-evident. You may reject that whole concept - that's fine, but don't ask me about your type of empirical evidence because it is not needed in this paradigm. I know self-evident truths aren't fancied anymore these days because they often lead to some uncomfortable conclusions that have politically been deemed unacceptable. "Absurd!", you say. Well consider the latest example, the Olympics: I would call it self-evident that males are physically stronger than females and thus should not compete against each other in most sports. I don't need scienctific research for that. Yet here we are letting trans-women (physical males) compete against women in the Olympics. Now isn't that absurd! All the "scientific studies" didn't help prevent such idiocy.
Now this example is easy to follow because everything physical we can see with our own eyes. With psychology it's a little more subtle but analogous self-evident facts hold!
Just like the male peacock or lizard or bell bird or whatever, which doesn't conduct or refer to empirical research when it comes to finding a mate, so do I as a male specimen of my species just inherently know what is generally (EMPHASIS!) attractive in and to females even beyond personal preferences and beyond myself as an individual - and do not require any scientific exercise for that SHOCK - JAWS DROPPING - WHERE IS THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE!? Again, the predictive performance of that knowledge as well as general observations and experience only validate this fact.
P.S: Sorry for the "pseudo-intellectual" but it's not meant personally, I'm referring to the scientiVIST approach of (IMO) over-eagerly applying the scientific method to every aspect of life especially in the context of personal advice (involving psychology (a soft science)) which is what this thread is all about.
All I'm trying to understand is how it is self evident - because you didn't provide any details.
To summarize:
1) The original statement made by a poster was: "We're looking for a wife— take care of my house and children, be attractive and cook"
2) I asked who is 'We' in this context and that that statement is an out-dated view - because I'm not seeking those traits in women and based on comments in this thread - there are quite a few who don't either.
3) Then you commented with: "Seeking those traits in women is hard-coded into men"
And now my question is:
How is it hard coded? Is it hard coded in our DNA? Or is it because how some of us have been brought up to view women? If so - then it's not hard coded (= something innate in our biology that can't be changed in the short term).
I don't know how. Perhaps in our DNA, but I don't know. I'd wager that liking certain physical traits in the opposite sex is hard-coded into our DNA so I wouldn't be surprised if other things were too.
But do I need to know how? Does the peacock, lizard or bell-bird need to know how?
I acknowledge you not identifying with the sentiment in question but may I ask: Is it in your mind conceivable that you are the one who has been brought up to view women in a way that is in opposition to your hard-coded nature?
For me 'your hard-coded nature' means that it's not something you can change without altering your biology.
Men seeking women to "take care of my house and children, be attractive and cook" is not hard coded in our biology in my view. That's because you have so many examples nowadays where that's not the case, e.g. house husband - a man who stays at home and cooks and looks after kids. Or even in the past - there are signs that women assumed the role of a hunter [0].
It's something that's taught or picked up from the society you grew up in, e.g. traditional view that boys play with toy cars and girls play with dolls or men are the bread winner and women are at home cleaning, cooking and looking after the kids.
So in that way, yes it's conceivable that many people have not been brought up that way and are not looking for women that "take care of my house and children, be attractive and cook".
And that was my whole point - to counter the sweeping statement that it's what men are looking for, because it's hard coded in their nature.
Your view is your view, so I don't get why you try to disguise it as some objective revelation. The whole world present & past generally happens to oppose your view. Anecdotal exceptions don't disprove rules, rather are a common trait of such. That NG article is meaningless, just full of speculation and a single isolated example of something that proves nothing.
> It's something that's taught or picked up from the society you grew up in, e.g. traditional view that boys play with toy cars and girls play with dolls or men are the bread winner and women are at home cleaning, cooking and looking after the kids.
Oh, very baseless claims + wrong assumptions here. Assuming that you are actually willing to broaden your perspective, I would highly recommend to you this talk on the human brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjE_yaJjXE8 - You will love it if you love studies, which you seem to!
Your last two sentences are in direct contradiction to each other. If you agree that you may have been raised and taught in a way opposite to your hard-coded nature then that doesn't counter, but rather supports (!), the fact that there is such hard-coded nature.
Since you seemingly like anecdotes a lot and rely on them for all of your argument (while at the same time attacking my view for alleged lack of empirical evidence), let me ask: Are you a stay-at-home husband as well?
Maybe we're having different definitions of hard-coded.
My definition of hard coded: something that's innate in us - something we're born with, e.g. encoded in DNA.
I don't think men looking for women to cook for them etc is hard-coded - because there are so many counter examples. Nature vs nurture.
Why do you think I was attacking your view? I was simply trying to understand why you think it's hard-coded.
And if you think that NG article is just speculation, then don't you think what you're claiming is also speculation?
I'm happily admitting that my comment is speculation based on what I'm observing.
But since I don't have a clear understanding of how this work, I'm asking these questions to get a fuller picture.
But you said you don't really know - so fair enough.
I do want to broaden my perspective and ideally with scientific research / reading articles by experts who have studied this subject for decades and I thought maybe you had those at hand to support the view that men are hard-coded (born with) to "looking for a wife— take care of my house and children, be attractive and cook"
I was absolutely looking for a partner, and I did not care even a little whether she cooked. And physical attractiveness is extremely subjective and not the highest on my list (although obviously it is important). But to each their own I guess.
