Reddit mentions of Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men

>I never knew life could be so different for an attractive woman. On the other hand, i rather not have everyone in my surroundings have hidden agendas so i guess she is a victim of that stuff also.

Women learn/are conditioned to capitalize off of shit like this at a young age. Take a look at how a young girl (say... 10 years old or so) asks her father for something and then compare that to how they ask their mother for something. With their father they will act shy and vulnerable in need of "rescuing"... and with their mother they will play around with their egos with something like "Jenny's mom is so cool she... (add generic compliment)." Somewhere down the road "Jenny's mom bought her this beautiful sweater. Jenny is so lucky."

Dr. Leonard Sax has written extensively on this subject in his books Boys Adrift and Girls On The Edge - great reads that I highly recommend.

This does not necessary have anything to do with sex but more to do with a more basic primitive necessity of external affirmation and validation. To spite all of our attempts at social engineering the reality is that we as a society still default to our primitive imperative. A man/boy's value is based on how well he can provide for and/or protect... and a woman/girl's value is based on how desirable she is and/or how competent of a mother/mate she is.