loisrose:

I’ve often heard ‘women are too picky nowadays’, ‘their standards are too high’. No - women have always been picky, and have always had high standards. The difference is that now they have the opportunity to exercise it: now, they have the financial independence, the educational opportunities, to not have to put up and shut up. They are not dependent on the male breadwinner, they are not considered deficient by the entire community if they don’t settle down with a man. And it isn’t just young women: you see it in the women in their 50s and 60s who had it ingrained in them that they had to stick it through. Yes, he made a mistake, but you need to work through it. Find it in yourself to forgive him, be the bigger person and martyr yourself on his flaws and betrayals. They have done that for decades of marriage because they were conditioned to believe that their only other option was loneliness and ending up alone, which was the worst thing that could happen to them. But now they are discovering they have options - they don’t have to stay in an unequal relationship one up from a skivvy. 

Women are expressing themselves, and being clear on what they deserve, as human beings, in a partner. The men that complain about that are the ones who fall short of the basic requirement that they have to treat women with respect, that they have to treat them as a person and as an equal partner. That all the requirements and ‘you should haves’ that they had for women may actually be applied to them. And when you have been stubbornly mediocre your entire life that makes them feel threatened.