I think you've figured it mostly out. Both genders desire this sense of companionship, not just women. The difference between the genders (and why there are so many products targeted at men and so few targeted at women) is that due to realities of dating and courtship, this companionship is readily, and disproportionately available to women. So the demand must be much higher for men. I'd be surprised if it wasn't as simple as that.
The majority partners of women are men, and the majority of partners of men are women. I think for one-to-one companionship people look for compatibility rather than similarity.
I'm really surprised about the gender focus here, and the fact that neither of you have answered any of the gender questions raised so far. Why not build for both genders? Do you have data suggesting that a) older men are not lonely/want community b) older women do not want to be around older men or c) something similar?
I agree that this is a dramatically underserved market, but I am unaware why women are particularly underserved than men.
> men want to be in a relationship more than women
Is this a commonly held opinion? I’d be curious to read any material on this, because nothing (to me at least) suggests one gender wants it more than the other. Is it simply because there are more men than women on the popular dating apps?
Well, it's part and parcel of the existing gender roles. Men chase, women choose. Being chosen by women indicates a man has value.
Mechanized playthings for a man indicate low value (he can't find a real woman). It gives little info about a woman.
On the flip side, having many human playmates indicate a man has high value. It lowers a woman's value, however, both due to perception and for some intrinsic reasons.
Looking at the whole picture, I think men come out ahead: human playmates >> mechanical playthings.
You can't simply say that since men are more hesitant to commit to relationships, and women less, that the same holds true in startups or careers, or that it translates at all. Both genders exhibit behaviors where mating is concerned that are very different from how they behave in other situations.
You should really read up on evolutionary psychology, I think you might enjoy it.
I don't think it's solely a lack of meaningful social connections, although that's a contributing factor. Women have more choices and are more picky versus historically, and men are economically disadvantaged due to globalization and wealth/income inequality.
For every additional lonely single man there's another lonely single woman, more or less. It doesn't seem to be a problem that affects women less than men. So why the asymmetrical focus on men? How is this a male skills deficit rather than a human skills deficit? Are female dating skills assumed, or less important, or less relevent for some reason?
It's like a story about the terrible burden placed on men by inflation. OK, but what's gender specific about that?
Is this really true? I find in my own experience that men want sex more than women is a stereotype of sorts. That women are more selective than men is a distinct observation but I'm not so sure how true that is either and how much of it is merely due to traditional gender roles.
Men only dominate positions that have high income in the beauty industry. Follows directly the predictive model as stated above.
Young women (ages 12-24) out-buy all other age groups when it comes to haircare, skincare, cosmetics, and fragrances (Source: “Junior League” by Kelley Donahue. American Salon
, January 2000).
Feel free to provide statistics that men are the majority customer for those products. You assume incorrectly that incentives has no role in how people behave. That is terrible flawed, both as a predictor in how society look like today and as a explanation in how we got there. By ignoring it you are doing anti-science and arguing out of belief. If you are just going to continue then this is a waste of time.
The focus by men on physical appearance, and the focus by women on wealth is a dominating factor in dating. It is the single strongest correlating variable out there (A worth reading are the OkCupid blog on the subject). In a separate survey done in china, over 90% of the women responded that they would not date a man earning less than average income (which eliminate more than half the male population), and a majority of responses thought that men should not be outside when they earn below average income. They should instead be inside working and try become marriageable. That is about as strong social pressure that you can get, similar to how certain countries think about women that are not married.
If you want to present how some mythical barriers to entry shaped the industry rather than plain incentives, then you got to actually bring some data. Not empty theories, but data and experiments that show how barriers to entry is the best explanation to explain gender segregation in the work force. Bloomberg is not attempting to do that, and only present it as their theory with some chosen quotes by a few people in order to support it.
Good point. Perhaps that's simply an instance of a more general rule: women, on average, have stricter requirements than men, so they have a smaller pool to choose from.
There may be other preference-related explanations. Perhaps men are more likely than women to opt out of heterosexual relationships (e.g. by being gay or happily single).
Then there are demographic explanations. Our species is not perfectly gender-balanced; there are (slightly) more women than men.
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