I've been thinking that workforce gender equality would happen faster if men had a predictable choice of being subsidized in heterosexual relationships.

I think an even distribution of people would choose that.

Seems a lot of energy is spent on not considering how the funnels are different for men and women, and how that factors into dilution of the workforce pipeline by gender initially and over time. My thoughts are that this is a greater factor in everything about this topic. Like, a lot of understanding about the work place structure could be made by noticing that many men don't really want to be there while many women are there out of pride in lieu of other choices. (Many =/= most. Likely an even distribution of all populations experiencing the same thing, except the choice of subsidy.)

Everyone wants gender equality but no one wants to date a man earning less than them.

I’ve seen couples support each other taking turns going to school, but there was the expectation of becoming a dual income couple and even then they were together as economic equals beforehand

I can think of one or two couples where the woman was a high level executive with a broke artist waiting for their big break. I would actually dare extrapolate that to an extreme where highly economically unequals get together.

But I want to see something more mundane. Like a single earning woman is a UPS driver keeping a man that is so enamored with her ability to provide. Because I’ve seen that with the gender roles reversed, and that attractive woman could have been a live in partner with anyone. This would not be predictable for men in heterosexual relationships right now.

This. All the "progress" of the past 100 years has come through exploitative labor, fossil fuel, plastics, reckless mining, massive farming (incl. meat)

a tiny extent, through technology, but that too via undercompensated labor of scientists

Well, except for all the slaves.

Sorry, "willing" is inaccurate. "Forced", either through necessity or violence, is the better word.

I support that sentiment. I don’t think anyone truly chooses to do these bad jobs. Perhaps they apply a fake veneer of choice, manliness, romanticism. But ultimately I can only conclude that people do it for lack of a better option.

Many of the (mostly men) people who do this work do so because it’s part of their identity and culture. I would recommend more conversations with folks who do the hard labor.that’s why coal miners vote in ways that don’t make sense!

The problem is not the job itself. Many people are fulfilled by working hard dangerous jobs. The problem is the compensation and status.

When it comes to "the modern world", slave labor has always been a tiny fraction of the overall labor.