Shit Straight Men Say: "32-year-old women don't have much to offer a man."

I've learned some things recently that I am willing to unlearn.

I knew I was going to have a relatively bumpy start to the year. This isn’t setup to look for sympathy because my current problems are very trivial and will be solved with timing, but at the end of last year I was mentally gearing myself up as much as possible to be OK with the fact I was just not going to feel Very Happy Or Secure as 2023 hit.

Giving up my career as I knew it after years in the entertainment industry was never going to be easy. I was stuck in a fight or flight environment for so long, that leaving that cycle was always going to end with me feeling incredibly emotionally drained and confused about what’s next. I’m someone who is usually very planned and in control, sometimes to my detriment. Leaving a job to go nowhere, to sit with my own thoughts, to try and dig into what I really want to do next and what would bring me happiness, teamed with deleting dating apps and other distractions that have equated to my “identity” — not being The Bachelor recap person, not being the Shit Straight Men say person, not being the manager people could come to on a daily basis anymore. I had to let go of my issue to feel needed. And I found that uncomfortable and, in all honesty, I started the year feeling worse mentally than I have in a really long time as I sat with that lack of direction.

I’ve said it in previous issues, but my goal this year is to be able to turn writing about dating into a more nuanced, thought-out thing, and work on a book. I think there’s so much to unpack when it comes to dating, the mindsets of millennial women and men, and how dating apps have helped or hindered us.

Recently what’s been playing on my mind is the various struggles of dating as a woman in my 30s: In the last 12 months, I’ve had situations where the concept of having kids has been brought up in various ways. I’ve had someone say to me that because I may want a kid in the future, they won’t be the right person for me because they may not know what they want until they’re 40. I’ve had a male friend my age say (in a casual conversation) that he’d love kids one day “if I found someone young enough”. I’ve had numerous other male friends back up similar sentiments: stating that while it may have felt like a subconscious bias until I’ve brought it up with them, they would start to see women in their early-mid 30s as too old to grow a family with.

My personal thoughts on kids is that I’d only be open to having one if I met the right partner. I’m learning a lot of men tend to be looking at it from a biological point of view: they’ll decide when they’re ready to “settle down” and then they will do exactly that. They think they have time on their side and that they can always date younger if they want kids. Unfortunately, I am also learning many men seem to believe in the concept of “The Wall”: that a woman hits a certain age and is no longer useful to them and what they want. She’s getting older, her looks are apparently fading, she’s no longer deemed “fertile” or sexually desirable to these men. Who probably only have sex with their hand, but moving on…

I’d challenge every man reading this to think about his own subconscious bias as we continue this conversation.

I made a TikTok talking about how it feels confusing and ridiculous to be a woman in my 30s having to focus so hard on making a choice about kids when all I’m really wanting is to find a connection and fall in love one day. The TikTok was meant to be about being the weird age where you’re either deemed a scary concept to date in case you do want a kid, or you’re already deemed too old to be a future partner because of age not being on your side.

The video blew up with some horrific comments from men and I wasn’t quite prepared for how backward people were and how little men out there still think about women.

Within the comments, I was finding double standards (of course!) and some absolutely awful, sexist opinions. That it’s OK for men to date younger, but if a woman is dating younger the man wouldn’t be mature enough for her or he’s just “using” her. That if women in their 30s want kids, they need to be dating men in their 40s. That it’s the fault of a woman for not wanting kids sooner and they end up in their 30s, desperate and alone and should just get a cat. That evil, vindictive women are wasting their 20s by not looking for their baby daddy and are all dried up at 30 and should’ve learned their lesson and no self-respecting man would want them. That feminism is to blame. Actually, all women are to blame. Because in their 30s, women are finally hitting “the wall” and getting the wake-up call “they deserve.”

In all honesty, I (maybe naively) didn’t expect to unlock the misogynistic incel side of TikTok and, fuck me, it was depressing to be inundated with these comments while knowing that a small kernel of it does resonate with men we all know in everyday life. That they do have a bias against women in their 30s because of reproductive reasons. And somehow they’re all fucking fertility experts while not bothering to look into their own fertility or the issues that surround fertility in general, because it’s easier to blame women, right?

I’m not a fertility expert so I’m not going to use this newsletter to educate anyone on what they can just look into themselves when it comes to having a baby in the future… but I’d start with maybe not solely blaming women. Maybe start focusing on how women’s healthcare and reproductive health is, at its core, extremely under-researched and can be very misleading. It can be led by old statistics or sometimes sensationalist headlines. When deciding to just put the shame on women for “losing fertility” in their 30s, a lot of men don’t think about the fact that women are dealing with a plethora of problems because, in a lot of ways, women’s health has never been as big of a priority as men’s and can be incredibly sexist: you don’t see cis men being referred to geriatric at the age of 35. You don’t see cis men having to take themselves off the pill and deal with the problems that arise from that. You don’t see cis men suffering from period pain, PCOS, endo, or other issues and then being told the very pill that can mess up your hormones, mind, and body is the only solution. A lot of men don’t bother educating themselves on any aspect of women’s health, but they sure as fuck can figure out when you’ve become infertile. Apparently!

The thing is, you probably don’t know until you do the fertility tests yourselves: and issues can affect women and men of all ages. It was always my plan, even before this TikTok drama, to get my fertility tested this year to understand what I’m working with and whether it’d shape my future life decisions. I don’t hear many male friends my age saying the same — why not?

Now, back to TikTok and the comments that came through. I thought I’d share a snippet of the actual shit straight men are saying out there.

Enjoy. It’s pretty fucking dire. I have no further commentary to add at this stage apart from stating I’ve never been happier to be single and not procreating with any of these morons.

Not sure how many cars I’ll find at the RSPCA though.

Now, to finish this off: I know. Not all men! Ignore the comments! They’re a minority, not a majority!

But I think every woman will tell you she’s had to deal with this kind of behaviour on some sort of uncomfortable level, either publicly or not. So if you’re a man and found reading these comments uncomfortable, I’d urge you to be pulling up your mates and other men who hold these viewpoints or see women as “lesser” than — even and especially when women aren’t around. We all have a responsibility to help each other be better or stop spreading such vile opinions.

Finally, thank you to those people who have reached out to me after this “millennial accidentally upsets misogynists on TikTok” mishap. I appreciate it a lot. I’ve usually got a pretty thick skin when it comes to online comments (comes with the job) but unfortunately it all blew up at a time when I was already feeling pretty low so while I know it’s not personal and these people are morons, I appreciate all those who sent me a message or checked in!