The way we see and value women has transformed, for the better, over the last century. Gone are days where women were all financially dependent upon men, and were confined to the home. No longer are they limited to being dainty housewives, or baby making machines; but now untethered to become colleagues, friends, mentors, teammates, CEOs, working mothers, and political leaders. Rich, diverse and autonomous beings; women are now more or less, equal participants in the workforce. And we are all the better for it. But I don’t think men have experienced their own transformation, or their own renaissance of ‘what is a modern man?’ As men in so many ways, continue to be seen as just breadwinning providers, protectors, career animals and pay cheques. ‘A man is only loved on condition that he provides something’, famously said Chris Rock. And this is a reality a lot of single men, rolling the dice on the dating market, can testify to first hand. As one of these men myself, I think I’ve had just about everything scrutinised by women I’ve dated – my clothes, my watch, my trainers, my home, my studio, all of it… Each of them silently looked at as status signifiers. ‘This house is very studenty’, one said about the home in which I used to live. ‘This is smaller than I expected’, another noted when I showed her the office for my company. ‘This is extremely boring’, exclaimed another at a VIP event I took her too. Each of these women were unknowingly hammering the final nail into their own coffin, and likely went on unbeknownst to where it all went wrong. So, for all of our sakes, is there value in the conversation of challenging dating standards for men? Are we holding modern men to an expectation from a bygone era, that most of them have no hope of achieving? Should we challenge the archetype of what makes a good male partner, as we have for our women? It is time to talk about one of the most controversial theories of all – #Hypergamy? What do you think? ~ Videos by Professor Galloway and Aba and Preach Images by Dan Cristina Padure, Gradienta, Ray Zhou, Sasha Freemind, Good Faces Agency, Sebastian Leon Predo, Rene Ranishe from Unsplash.

2023-04-23