Peter Coates
1 min readJun 6, 2024

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Interesting result. I wouldn't be surprised. To the extent that one can generalize about entire populations, women seem more practical-minded than men about these things. But does it really make sense to talk about women and men outside of the context of class and culture? My experience is that cultural and class differences across the population are bigger than gender differences. In crude terms, the farther up the economic ladder you go, the more modern people are. The statement "monogamy stifles women, forcing them to trade happiness for security" made sense in the Mad Men era, but does it really apply among educated middle and upper middle class Americans any more? I don't know any modern marriages where there is any real asymmetry in expectation of fidelity. In fact, I'd say that even expressing the belief that there should be would be a powerful class marker. In particular, who lives in a world where women are expected to "endlessly forgive men who can do as they please without societal backlash." Maybe in the 1950's, but that world was gone before I lived in it.

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Peter Coates
Peter Coates

Written by Peter Coates

I was an artist until my thirties when I discovered computers and jumped ship for a few decades. Now I'm back to it. You can probably find some on instagram.

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