One of the things I think men may find difficult is that in the "west" at least "beauty" and pretty power is not particularly directed at or for men. Particularly after their 30s is is almost wholly about other women. Of course the few genuinely attractive women still deploy these in their finding a "catch" or as leverage. But in general the whole massive and trillion dollar edifice has little to do with men and everything to do with the complex and shifting quicksands of the competitive psycho dramas in which each women is a "star". I really do think that one of the reasons male get so much "stick" is because they appear so un-encumbered by so much of the complexities women's own feverish narcissism and competition. After all it must be annoying when your partner or colleauge doesn't notice the few pounds lost, new colour lipstick, the "on trend" jeans, cutting remark or "being ignored" and trundles on: untroubled. I is after all a norm in our society to assume males will simply carry on regardless of anything thrown at them. It is in a way a sort of backhanded compliment that women can be "traumatized" by things as trivial as embarrassment while men can be totally and publicly trashed in every way, and be expected to have "learned something" from the experience. As you say we live in a time where the differences between the sexes have become grotesquely polarized .