Omega Males and the Women Who Hate Them

They're unemployed, romantically challenged, and they're everywhere

By Jessica Grose

he image of the American woman has gone through several upheavals since the 1950s, but the masculine ideal seems fixed in cultural aspic: Think slick ad executive Don Draper in Mad Men and the WWII heroes in the Tom Hanks-produced HBO series The Pacific. So his confused, paralyzed counterpart is cropping up in ever-more variations on TV and in movies: the omega male.

While the alpha male wants to dominate and the beta male just wants to get by, the omega male has either opted out or, if he used to try, given up. The omega male is not experiencing the tired trope of the midlife crisis. A midlife crisis implies agency, a man who has the job and the family and chooses to reject it. The omega male doesn't have the power to reject anything—he's the one who has been brushed off. He's generally unemployed, and his romantic relationships are in shambles—he's either single or, if he's married, not happy about it.

http://www.slate.com/id/2248156