The Male Gender-War Advantage
Each (of the main two) gender has things that it honestly wants from the other, and also things that it is reluctant to give up to them.
In an uncoordinated equilibrium, market prices appear for all these things, and individuals seek out partners and terms that offer good deals at market prices.
However, genders often try to coordinate to change this outcome. Each side tries to induce its folks to ask higher prices for what it sells, and lower prices for what it buys.
About half of the posts on X/Twitter that mention gender are complaints about a gender, applying the questionable theory that genders with more complaints voiced about them will offer better deals. A more effective method uses status.
Raising the status of some situation or action, and people will pay more to get it. Lower that status, and they’ll pay more to avoid it. For example, women can raise the price men pay for sex with women by lowering the status of promiscuous “sluts”, while men can raise the price women pay to “henpeck” men by lowering the status of such men.
However, men have a big advantage re this status strategy, as how much other men respect a man counts a lot more to women than how much other women respect a woman counts to men. (Data) So when men look down on hen-pecked men, those men look bad in both male and female eyes, while when women look down on a promiscuous woman, that woman doesn’t look so bad in male eyes.
Thus men can more easily coordinate to change the attractiveness of men to women, and women find it harder to coordinate to change the attractiveness of women to men. So men can more easily, compared to women, coordinate to demand higher prices for what they sell, and lower prices for what they buy. Maybe this can help explain historical gender norms.
Erratum: "Some" takes me to "Effects of Experimental Bot Fly Parasitism on Gonad Weights of Peromyscus maniculatus" https://www.jstor.org/stable/1380025 , which I am guessing is not the intended reference (and I can't guess what is because you didn't provide anything but a link).
An interesting take. I wonder if you miss the forest for one particular tree though, as currently women seem far far more vocal in their critique of men than men in their critique of women.
A take I often see is that complaining is unattractive in men, but appealing/neutral in women. Hence, women find it easier to coordinate to belittle the other gender.
Women seem to think they can be casually sexist and misandrist, without any downsides. While men seem to fear being sexist and misogynist quite strongly. At least that is my experience of young people at university.
I think, in reality, both genders are harmed by being sexist (as either way it vastly limits your options for a kind and loving partner), but it definitely seems mainstream to be anti-men, and almost completely taboo to be anti-women in polite society.