Except that I didn't actually say "drive to be the best at everything, try to be rich and in charge." Most men who chase that stuff don't actually know who they are, aren't working on healing themselves, and are way insecure. If they weren't so insecure, they wouldn't be chasing what society and influencers tell them will make them happy or valuable and would be figuring out what those things mean to them. As the author notes in the OP:
"These stories are rarely of rich men saving the day. The female characters do not need to be saved. When I see men subscribing in the millions to YouTubers telling them how to be masculine, it makes me sad, because the masculinity they are selling isn’t what women even want."
I'm talking about the fact that way too many young men go to work, and then come home and sit in front of the TV or video games all night, and then get up and do it again. Nothing wrong with doing either of those things as recreation, but when they are essentially a way to numb out and not have to deal with life, and you've got absolutely nothing else going on - then that is really unattractive because it's like a child in big-people clothing. This sorts of men aren't finding fulfillment or purpose in anything at all - and that is the problem that I'm naming.
Everybody needs to heal. We've all been raised in a trauma-inducing culture, and I've not yet met a single person who wasn't impacted by that to at least some extent. Most men don't pursue that because it's too vulnerable, and admitting they're not perfect is uncomfortable. Too bad, do it anyway, because that's part of being an adult and not just someone who happens to be older than 18.
Sorry, but women have been uncomfortably, and often with severe consequences, fighting against what society says they are supposed to be for hundreds of years and they're still facing that today. Saying men can't do it because it's hard and there sometimes is backlash doesn't fly.
Besides, most women don't care about money; they care that you have a steady job so that you don't become a financial drain on them, and how that indicates some sort of basic level of adult responsibility. Reverting to these incel-informed myths about what women want and care about is a cop-out; it's a way to scapegoat women so that men don't have to grow up and become adult men in the sense that the author describes.
It's not enough to be "nice" - you have to embark on some sort of Hero's journey as well - not to slay dragons in the world, but to slay the ones inside that are keeping you from owning who you are and what you offer, no matter how that fits into societal expectations. That's the sort of masculinity we're talking about here that is so attractive to most women. It's like you really didn't read this OP - in favor of your pet narrative. You cling to the notion that there's some sort of checklist of qualities out there that women are insisting upon, when in reality, it's a suite of internal characteristics that have to do with cultivating maturity and ownership of who you are. "I defend who I am, but I'm also deeply insecure about it" isn't going to cut it.
You don't actually know why someone has been rejected by someone else - so making up a story about why that is is self-serving and erases the dozens of possibilities for what it might actually be in favor of this same disempowering narrative that you love to cling to.
Despite the over-arch of society, diversity is a key trait of humanity, and one that serves an important biological and evolutionary purpose. If all women only liked the exact same kind of man, it would not only negatively impact the amount of diversity that is actually best for evolution, it would also mean that the vast majority of men who weren't that would have been selected out by now. The fact that a wide, wide range of men exist in any given culture is all the evidence we need that your incel-informed stories aren't true in the slightest.
"The "Hero's Journey" is a common narrative structure in storytelling where a protagonist, often called a "hero," embarks on an adventure, faces challenges and obstacles, undergoes transformation, and ultimately returns home changed, having learned valuable lessons and overcome their fears; "
What the author is saying (and I'm agreeing with) is that more men need to be doing THAT!
