✶Explainer
Title IX flipped the college gap, and no one wants to flip it back
Galloway traces how a 60-40 male-to-female college enrollment gap was deemed unacceptable 40 years ago and corrected with affirmative action for women. Today the ratio is 60-40 the other way and worsening, yet proposing affirmative action for men is politically unpalatable, so schools run informal, under-the-radar versions instead.
- Forty years ago it was 60-40 male-to-female; now it's 60-40 female-to-male and getting worse
- Men drop out at higher rates, widening the graduation gap further
- Admissions directors quietly struggle to get men to apply and feel welcome
- Boys' schools tend to have twice the recess; boys need a different educational approach
“There's informal under the radar affirmative action because admissions directors will tell you they're having trouble getting men to apply.”
#education#college#policy#boys
✶Explainer
The data says men need relationships more than women do
Galloway argues the cultural archetype of the lonely 30-something woman is backwards. When women lack a romantic relationship they often reinvest energy into friends and work; men more often spiral into unproductive behavior. The health and happiness data strongly favor partnered men.
- Widows are often happier after a husband dies; widowers are less happy
- Men in relationships live about 4-7 years longer; the effect for women is 2-4
- One in three men not cohabiting or married by 30 has a substance-abuse risk
- Single men are more prone to going deeply online and to conspiracy theories
“The reality is men need relationships more than women.”
“Widows are happier after their husband dies than when he was alive. Widowers less happy.”
#relationships#loneliness#health#men
✶Explainer
Losing a male role model is a boy's single point of failure
Galloway describes research showing that when a boy loses a male role model through death, abandonment or disease, he becomes more likely to be incarcerated than to graduate college, while a girl in the same situation shows no change in college attendance, income or self-harm. He calls for communities to actively insert men into boys' lives, noting men aren't stepping up.
- A boy who loses a male role model becomes more likely to be incarcerated than to graduate college
- Girls in the same situation show no change in college attendance, income or self-harm
- Three times as many women apply to be Big Sisters in New York as men apply to be Big Brothers
- You don't need to be a CEO to mentor a boy; you just have to show up
“The moment a young man, a boy, loses a male role model... he becomes more likely at that moment to be incarcerated than graduate from…”
“You just have to show up. You just have to take an interest in their life.”
#fatherhood#mentorship#boys#role-models
✶Explainer
How the rage economy is breeding asocial, asexual men
Galloway connects male isolation to market structure. Around 40% of the S&P by market cap is roughly 10 companies in social media, online and AI, whose business is enraging and sequestering users. Combined with remote work, closed pubs and declining church attendance, this removes the third places where men once demonstrated excellence and met partners.
- About 40% of the S&P by market cap is ~10 attention-and-addiction companies
- Their incentive is to enrage and isolate users for engagement and ad revenue
- 40% of London pubs and nightclubs have closed since COVID
- Galloway warns we're evolving a new species of asocial, asexual males
“We're evolving a new species of asocial, asexual males. We're literally planning our own extinction.”
#technology#isolation#social-media#men
✶Explainer
Marriage is the new luxury good, and the GI Bill built the old one
Galloway argues marriage has become a luxury good stratified by income: three-quarters of top-quintile men marry versus a quarter of the bottom quintile. He contrasts this with the postwar era, when the GI Bill and a monopoly US economy made ordinary men economically viable, fueling the baby boom and the greatest innovation in history, the American middle class.
- Top-income-quintile men marry at ~75%; bottom-quintile men at ~25%
- Historically the top 10% of men had 80% of mating opportunities
- Seven million fit, decorated WWII veterans plus the GI Bill created mass viability
- Galloway calls the American middle class the greatest innovation in history
“The new luxury item, hands down, is marriage.”
#marriage#economics#class#history
✶Explainer
Height is the new signal, and stated vs revealed dating preferences
Galloway and Williamson discuss how online dating has collapsed attraction into a few objectively displayable signals, chiefly resources and height, since smell, humor and body language can't be shown. Galloway proposes a live-audience experiment exposing the gap between what women say they'll accept and who they actually date.
- Online dating rewards signaling resources and height over humor, smell or presence
- Height has become 'the new big naturals' because it's objectively expressible
- Six-figure-and-six-foot demands describe roughly 2% of men
- A staged audience experiment would reveal the gap between stated and revealed preferences
“The new big naturals for men is height. Because it can be objectively expressed online.”
#dating#online-dating#attraction#height
✶Explainer
Kindness, not niceness, is a man's secret weapon
Galloway lists three things women find attractive: signaling resources, intellect (fastest shown through humor), and a lesser-known third, kindness. He distinguishes kindness from pliable niceness: niceness is complimenting someone to get something, while kindness is small unreciprocated acts, and he prescribes building a deliberate kindness practice until it becomes second nature.
- The three attractors: resources/a plan, intellect signaled via humor, and kindness
- Niceness can be transactional; kindness is unreciprocated and pro-social with boundaries
- Kindness is a practice, not a fixed trait; Galloway now compliments strangers deliberately
- Women instinctively read genuine kindness as a signal of a safe long-term partner
“There's a differentiation between being kind and nice, and that is pliability.”
“Start establishing a kindness practice such that it becomes second nature. And women will notice.”
#kindness#attraction#self-improvement#men