I have mentioned before that 80% of the women are chasing 20% of the men. The other 20% of women are idiosyncratic and chasing some portion of the 80% of men that the 80% of women don't want. Now, statistics show that more than 20% of the women get the 20% that 80% of the women want (actually, it's probably closer to 25%, because people cheat, etc.) So, the truth is that at least 50% of men are not wanted. If they get a wife, she is 'settling' for him and they are at a high risk of divorce. But, more and more, the 50% of women who are not getting a man that they want, are just dispensing with marriage. They may have children, but the fathers are 'out of the picture'.

Next, men are not getting college degrees and the skilled non-degree jobs are also being invaded by women. The low status, 'dirty and dangerous' jobs are still dominated by men, but that doesn't help them reproductively. Lastly, because the standard deviation in IQ is higher among men, the bottom half of men are dumber than the bottom half of women. The net effect is that a whole bunch of men are becoming superfluous. They don't get educated, they don't get married, they don't get houses, and most importantly, they don't have children. The image of a middle aged guy living in his parents' basement is a real one, but there are also a lot of single men, many of them divorced, who are living alone with low wage jobs and no steady girlfriend. It is a very real problem and far more common than people imagine.

At the same time, testosterone levels are falling in males. The hormone is correlated with many 'masculine' behaviors and also strength. So, in a very real sense, men are, in general, becoming less masculine and that has a physiological component. While well studied, there is not yet a consensus as to why that is happening.

Throughout human evolutionary history, the 80% of women were not only chasing 20% of the men, for the most part, they were catching them. In other words, we see that while nearly 100% of women were reproducing, only about 25% of men were reproducing. In other words, human evolution threw away 75% of its male genetic diversity every generation. That has made humans fast evolvers and likely heavily influencing male characteristics.

In the 20th Century, the percent of men that reproduced approached, but did not reach, the percent of reproducing females. That has skewed our perception of human evolution. We do not think of humans are fast evolvers or anything buy pair bonders. In fact, we tend to think that the lowering of mortality rates among younger people has caused a devolution. It is true that some genetic diseases such as T1DM that no longer kill young people are becoming more prevalent. But that is not necessarily indicative of the evolutionary pressures being exerted upon non-fatal traits. I|n fact, I'd argue that it is not.

While the female/male reproductive ratio is nowhere near the historical 4:1 average, with the 50% 'left over men' it undoubtedly is going up. With the high rates of divorce and low rates of marriage, the opportunity for reproductively attractive males to have children with more than one woman, obviously, is increasing. The math gets complicated, but that also means that despite the reduction in mortality, the rate of human evolution is probably increasing.

However, there is no indication that women are selecting for less masculine men. In fact, the opposite can be supported. One good indication are the height requirements that women are putting on their dating site profiles. Of those who put a height requirement on their profiles, the vast majority ask for 'over 6 feet'. Since the average woman is about 5'5", they are asking for a 7" height differential or about 3" more than average. In other words, women, when they chase 20% of the male population are, among other things, selecting for bigness. They are also preferentially choosing for intelligence and career success, both of which select for dominant males.

So, the explanation for the crisis of masculinity is not obvious. One explanation, and one to which I will tentatively subscribe, is that selection pressures are causing the 20% of chased men to become more masculine and the 80% of unchased men to become less masculine. So, since the unchased out number the chased by 2.5:1, on average, men are becoming less masculine. Viewed that way, unless we are adamant about returning to a reproductive ratio closer to 1:1, it isn't a crisis at all. It is simply making the 50+% of throw away men more obviously throw away worthy. I don't claim to understand the selection mechanisms but there you are.