New York Times Article "51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse" Is A Lie
Like most everyone who still has a head on his shoulders, I was taken aback by the New York Times Article, “51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse“, by one Sam Roberts.
It seems the Times comes under fire quite often for publishing disinformation, and this article is no exception. Fortunately, Peter J. Smith, a writer for LifeSite, did his homework and figured out the article is a lie. His article “New York Times Gets Another Story Very Wrong – This Time it’s about Marriage” sets the record straight:
“Roberts creates his own analysis by using the Census Bureau’s “Living Arrangements of Persons 15 Years Old and Over by Selected Characteristicsâ€, by including in his 51% figure of women living without a spouse: unmarried teenage and college girls still living with their parents, women whose husbands work out of town, are institutionalized, or are separated from husbands serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Perhaps most disturbing is how blatantly Roberts’ claims are at variance with US census bureau statistics. Among marriageable women over 18 years old, 56.9% of women are married, with 53% having a spouse present, 1.4% with a spouse absent, 9.9% widowed, and 11.5% divorced. Yet, 67.3% of women 30-34, and 70.5% of women 35-39 are married, a far cry from the profiles of women offered by the Times of women finding fulfillment outside marriage. …
“Obviously 97% of women between the ages of 15 and 19 are never married!†Medved fumed. “What does it tell you when he’s including girls living home with their parents as single women and then uses that to create this lie that the majority of women are unmarried?â€
So why would the New York Times lie about marriage statistics? In my analysis, feminists wish to create the appearance that women are not marrying, so that women won’t marry. Feminists spent the last 45 years trying to convince women that marriage is a trap built by control-obessed men who are all dangerous, and that sexual liberation means having children out of wedlock with as many men as possible to maximize child support entitlements. This fooled a lot of women by appealing to fear or selfishness, but it has not fooled them all.
It seems that feminists are trying a new approach — treating women like cows — figuring they can trick even more women to follow them into the swamp of impoverished victimization.
The Times article might also be an attempt to convince Democrats in Congress that feminists now hold the majority of women’s votes — and should therefore be catered to with mindless care. I have news for Congress on this level: Republicans were just unseated partially because they ignored the wishes of moderate and right wing voters, who put Republicans in power in the 1994 landslide with a strong “family values” mandate. PROWA and VAWA are greatly disliked by a large majority of voters. A great majority of responsible women do not like it. Most women in the welfare state feel stuck in it, but are not inured to it. Most would like a way out — namely a marriagiable man who has not been destroyed by the welfare state.
However, debunking the Times article does not mean that all is well. 43.1% of women of marital age are not married. This is a tremendous problem which translates into our even more serious problems such as father-absence, teen and parental suicide, teen crime and violence, poor school performance, poverty for women and children and of the elderly, the child support dilemma, and lack of health care coverage. This problem is threatening the American Experiment, making it impossible fight a robust war on terror while maintaining a consistent budgetary surplus.
The fact is this: marriage is not entitled in any way. But there are many federal programs that actively disentitle it based on orchestrated feminist theories, thus destroying it. The answer is this: Federal government must stop interfering in the marriage market. Permanent entitlements must be ended, and welfare must be reformed to function as a temporary public tithe — as it functioned prior to 1974.
I would not buy the New York Times even if I was completely out of fish wrap and my parakeet had to sit on bare cold rusty-crusty metal. But I would sure buy this internet publication if it were for sale in my town.
Perhaps you might want to register your consumer opinion with The New York Times:
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Chairman & Publisher:
publisher@nytimes.com
Scott H. Heekin-Canedy, President, General Manager
president@nytimes.com
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David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Network and President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition
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men work, women play at work. think about it and draw your own conclusions. i was asked to watch the construction on the e-way so as to see all the women now doing hard work too. so i looked, i observed and i counted. the women either held the stop and go signs or rode on the equipment. i always thought that the equipment operators made more money. if so, how did they garner those jobs without paying their dues with a shovel first? ever notice how women go directly into management without the traditional climbing of the ladder first? its all around us if only we look for the signs. i would bet real money 70% of all hr employees are female. of course, what dept do we send our resumes to? men are blind, if not stupid. women know it and use that for their own gain. “for the children” indeed.
New York Times Article “51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse†Is A Lie ..
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Just like animale society, hope very soon the same will be 100%.
“Please, before you marry, just visit Family Court for one hour. You’ll see guys who make $24,000 per year be ordered to pay their ex $13,500 per year PLUS child support of an additional $7,500.”
If every man had the brains to do that, then the institution of marriage would fade away.
I found the 307 comments to the NYT article much more interesting than the original piece itself.
First, there was much comment on the thorough feminacentrism in the piece, though many women seemed to want men mentioned for the purpose of placing blame appropriately, or were offended that the article perpetuated the thinking that women are (still) expected to be with men.
Second, there were a number of women who openly admitted they had “terrible tastes in men when younger”. When you add in the number who related stories of the awful men they married and later divorced… well, it caused me to reflect on the fact that the support systems which previously led women into good or better marriages – such as the father having a veto – have all withered away, much to women’s disadvantage. Simply put, men tend to be better judges of another man’s character than women are, which must be why those practices evolved in the first place.
Third, in spite of the many claims that women were now ‘independent’, none pointed to the technological womb that civilization is, something almost entirely invented, built, and maintained by men. These women’s independence is illusory and short-sighted at best, until they start doing their share of the garbage-hauling and coal-mining. I was glad to see this recognized in a comment above.
Fourth, the feminacentrism already mentioned led to the impression that it was now women who are committment-phobic. This becomes difficult to believe when other relevant data are properly factored in, as many comments above correctly indicate. There was only one woman out of the ~150 who had it basically correct; she’s worth quoting:
…The custody, alimony and child support laws are stacked against these men – and I think they are cruel.
A majority of women portray men as omnipotent, omniscient, unconstrained, brutish … and responsible for “everything†– isn’t that perception a little skewed?
Maybe guys are human …
Meanwhile guys – don’t bother to mess with marriage. Let these women go to the sperm-banks – and all will be well with the world.
Fifth, no one seemed to notice the inconsistency of women saying they’d never be a slave to any man (cue footage of women doing the Macarena), but seem to have no problem being a slave to The Man (cue footage of woman arriving home after work to her ’second shift’).
Sixth, no one pointed to the dishonesty of using relatively affluent women as the poster children for the trend. When you factor out the widows (older women), the largest group is impoverished unmarried moms who would probably be better off having a man ‘oppress’ them, though their prospects in the mating market are limited on account of their having a child (or children).
Seventh, it was amazing the number of women who mentioned their degrees. And they say it’s men who brag?
Eighth, much too much was made of the fact that divorced men remarry at higher rates than divorced women. I mean, forty-somethings with 2 or 3 teenagers are real hot items on the mating market, right? Not to mention they’ve cashed out their options and don’t have much use for a traditional breadwinner type (all the while demanding the perfect suitor/gentleman/lover/soulmate), whereas non-traditional type guys are rightly wary of them and have better options to choose from.
There were a couple of other themes, but those hit the high points.