Women can no longer be taken for granted when it comes to desiring marriage. Since they’re increasingly becoming financially independent, marriage “security” means they’ll probably end up paying for some guy’s kids from a prior relationship. I find this topic irritating to write about, but unfortunately it is prevalent everywhere, including in the one hardcore political magazine I make time to read, [1] The Week. Each issue never fails to contain some article discussing how women are more emotional than men, how they need security and marriage, and how men are the opposite, tending to view relationships in physical terms. Both conservatives and liberals are guilty of promoting this stereotype, although for different reasons. Liberals like to portray women as different in order to promote them for offering a different perspective, no matter how invalid that perspective may be. For example, since liberal “Jane” prefers to have touchy-feely conversations at work about promoting diversity, teaching tolerance, and the importance of volunteering outside the office with social counseling programs for women in domestic violence shelters, “Jane” should be promoted to a Vice-President at the corporation, such as a VP of Diversity.
Conservatives promote the stereotype of women as more controlled by their emotions than men because they think it means women will care more about staying at home to raise children. While it is extremely important to have a parent in the home to raise children, it doesn’t necessarily follow that there is a correlation between women’s natures and that important priority. Women are increasingly entering the workforce, leaving their children in daycare or with babysitters. Their supposed “extra emotional” side is failing to show and stop them. Perpetuating this stereotype is no longer working to keep a parent in the home; it’s time conservatives turned to other arguments, perhaps one that acknowledges that a male parent in the home raising children serves the purpose equally as well.
I would argue that this stereotype is not only no longer working for conservatives, but it is actually hurting our cherished values, such as marriage. A [2] comprehensive study out of Australia found that while in 1971 only 11.6% of those age 30-34 had never married, today that number has increased more than threefold to over 36% (and note this doesn’t even include divorcees or those in their late 30’s). In my generation X, there are quite a few of us who aren’t married and are hesitant about it. My friends are mainly intelligent, successful women in their 30’s who are tired of men taking them for granted, men who assume once they start dating them that the women want a longterm commitment and “security.” Combine this with the message women get from society that men are only interested in superficial things as if they’re prostitutes, and it’s enough to make the women prematurely bail. It’s become more of a problem for women in their 30’s, because the stereotype gets worse as men assume the women are even more eager to snag a guy before they’re too old to bear children. If you haven’t noticed, First World countries are having fewer and fewer children these days - the stereotype about women wanting children is also disappearing.
Since there are more women entering the workforce, there are more successful women who don’t need “security” (in today’s world, “security” means they’ll probably end up paying for some guy’s kids from a prior relationship), who see the tremendous responsibility it takes to raise a child, and hear about others’ miserable marriages. Women are waiting and being very cautious before even contemplating marriage with the average guy they’re dating. With the advent of dating sites combined with women’s increased income and longevity of attractiveness thanks to plastic surgery, there is always a better fish in the sea out there, so why settle down to misery and being told that the man really doesn’t want you and marriage? Doesn’t anyone see it as a problem that the women in Generation X have been scared off from desiring marriage? Women already seek divorces more often than men do, why are we continuing to go down this path discouraging marriage?
It would be helpful if the news media and commentators wouldn’t exaggerate the minute differences between the sexes in every silly study that is produced. So what if 2% more women than men view “emotional connectivity” in a relationship as a higher priority than men, that could be explained away in the realm of statistical error or dismissed as a societally trained response. There is a reason why the most well-known proponent of mental gender differences is snake oil salesman-like John Gray, the Men are from Mars Women are from Venus author with a mail-order degree. If you tell someone over and over again they are a certain way, they will eventually believe it. Telling men they view women as physical objects, instead of as equal human beings, serves no purpose but to repress men and ruin future relationships they have with women.
Article originally published on Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy: http://www.intellectualconservative.com
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Mjaybee said,
If women are interested in marrying men who can support them, have them lobby for changes in the laws.
If women are not willing to marry men who make less than them, well, too bad. That’s independence, and we are all adults.
There is already a lost generation of working females who seem unwilling to make compromises in their personal and professional lives. They will remain single. Their choice.
September 24, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Roger60601 said,
Can you please clarify more on your single friends and their expectations when dating a guy? Why/how do the men take the women for granted?
You state “men who assume once they start dating them that the women want a longterm commitment and “security.” “. Does this mean that the single women you know dont want this they just want something casual? What part of the country are you in?
I am in my 30’s and have cut back on dating b/c I have found the stereotype to be mostly true, at least in Chicago. When I was younger I had difficulties dating as I was not a musician/artist/socialworker, you know, the indemand and sexy type. At some point in my 30’s dating became easier, but I realized I was being prequalified to fit the provider role (with professional working women). My interest may not be that great but the girl is actually calling persueing me, its funny cause the roles really seem reversed now. I do think mentalities could be different regionally/culturally but can’t say definitively if that’s true.
I do appreciate this topic as it interests and I dont have any answers for myself so I look forward to additional insight.
September 24, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Lloyd Selberg said,
“There is a reason why the most well-known proponent of mental gender differences is snake oil salesman-like John Gray, the Men are from Mars Women are from Venus author with a mail-order degree.”
Richard J. Haier and colleagues at the universities of New Mexico and California (Irvine) found, using brain mapping, that men have more than six times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly ten times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men (Haier, Rex E Jung and others, ‘Structural Brain Variation and General Intelligence’, NeuroImage 23 (2004): 425–433). “These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior,” according to Haier. Gray matter is used for information processing, while white matter consists of the connections between processing centers.
(See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_of_gender )
Are you sure you want to call Haier and colleagues snake oil salesmen with mail-order degrees? Perhaps you need to forget the feminist “wishful thinking” regarding androgyny and replace it with scientific evidence. Forget reading popular literature and substitute a scientific journal for your bedtime reading.
If you can’t handle NeuroImage (the journal article is available online) try Why Gender Matters by Leonard Sax detailing why boy and girls learn better when taught the same material segregated by gender.
September 24, 2007 at 2:04 pm
cybro said,
Women are scared off from marriage because they seek divorce more often than men do.
Democrats are scared off from taxes because they raise them more often than Republicans do.
Terrorist are scared off from explosives because they blow themselves up more often than Infidels do.
Illegals scared off from amnesty because they seek immagration more often than Citizens do.
September 24, 2007 at 2:10 pm
S Baker said,
September 24, 2007 at 2:16 pm
PolishKnight said,
Perpetuating this stereotype is no longer working to keep a parent in the home; it’s time conservatives turned to other arguments, perhaps one that acknowledges that a male parent in the home raising children serves the purpose equally as well.
It’s a simple reality that it’s not conservatives forcing women to not pick househusbands but rather women’s own desires to marry up in income. It’s especially hilarious to hear progressive career women complain that it’s difficult for such women to find high income earning men who ALSO will do an equal share of housekeeping tasks.
Feminists have tried to pull a shell game of offering to “save” marriage by getting free daycare so that “families” can save money. Of course, the “families” they are most concerned about are single unwed mother families who discover the hard way that a man who mere works to bring home a paycheck and doesn’t clean up around the house is better than NO husband at all!
In the ideal feminist world, a woman gets her job provided through affirmative action, men to pay her alimony and child-support, generous taxpayer benefits for mostly women, and tax breaks for single “parents” (mostly unwed mothers.)
And of course, men get “deadbeat dad” crackdowns to make him get a high paying job and pay for it all because, as you know, men are privileged.
September 24, 2007 at 2:34 pm
PolishKnight said,
If these women want to wait around for the better fish in the sea, that’s their option but they aren’t getting any younger. That leads to:
If you haven’t noticed, First World countries are having fewer and fewer children these days
Well, not all of them. The men can always date and marry younger women who don’t have entitlement attitudes and have children later. Rachel apparently thinks that just because her friends aren’t having children, nobody else is either. Nearly all the men I know in my age group are married and have children: WITH YOUNGER WOMEN.
September 24, 2007 at 2:38 pm
college activist said,
Mens only protection against the anti-male hysteria Klan is to no longer seek a marraige relationship…And thats what many men are doing!!
September 24, 2007 at 2:40 pm
college activist said,
http://www.mattweeks.com/strike.htm
September 24, 2007 at 2:42 pm
college activist said,
There are now many younger women that feel these feminists are poisenous!!
September 24, 2007 at 3:01 pm
christianj said,
Do I detect another woman complaining that nothing is going right and it’s all some one else’s fault and definately not their gender.
This type of feminist drivel is what we come to expect from female journalists as they complain mostly about not getting everything their own way…
As some of the guys here have stated previously…
MADE BED….SLEEP.
September 24, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Bernard Chapin said,
September 24, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Bernard Chapin said,
September 24, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Lloyd Selberg said,
I believe it was Fred Reed that observed that all intelligent females had entered law practice which brings to mind Fred’s equally perceptive view: “Lawyers lounge under the lampposts of jurisprudence, in the moral equivalent of plastic miniskirts and fishnet stockings, breathing, “Oh, ba-a-a-aybee, I’ll do anything for $250 an hour.” It’s surprising just how offended female attorneys are hearing this quote, never seeing that is totally gender neutral.
Where other than law can one develop the arrogance to write such nonsense ignoring facts while substituting feminist doctrine learned in college? I attribute much of the decline in legal ethics to the advent of women in law where deception and unethical behavior masquerade as success. Women are natural lawyers and have been preparing for the calling for centuries.
Having been married to two women holding doctorate degrees, I’m not the least intimidated by their supposed superior intellect, but have rather learned that most don’t have the common sense to come in out of the rain.
Intellectual conservative feminist is an oxymoron.
September 24, 2007 at 5:16 pm
daveinga said,
don’t get trapped, keep it wrapped.
September 24, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Artfldgr said,
September 24, 2007 at 6:58 pm
NotNOW said,
Are you really complaining about women getting custody and support, and saying that you’ll have to help your new husband pay support to his ex? Talk about the pot and the kettle….there’s a solution to this, it is called shared custody. I didn’t see anything in your article about it.
“Women are increasingly entering the workforce, leaving their children in daycare or with babysitters. Their supposed ‘extra emotional’ side is failing to show and stop them.”
But it is NOT failing to saddle them with a monumental amount of guilt, which they immediately project onto everyone around them, demanding “higher quality” child care, “free employer-provided” child care, endless paid maternity leave, blah blah blah. “I am not happy and someone had goddamned better fix it!!!!”
“our cherished values, such as marriage…”
Huh? You haven’t been lurking here long enough. Most of us wouldn’t save marriage if it was drowning in six inches of water.
“My friends are mainly intelligent, successful women in their 30’s who are tired of men taking them for granted,”
I feel your pain. My friends are mainly intelligent, successful men in their 40’s and 50’s who are tired of being 1) raped by the family court system; 2) denied access to their own children by their ex’s; 3) portrayed as either idiots, rapists, murderers or control freaks on TV; 4) Thrown out of their own homes.
“men are only interested in superficial things as if they’re prostitutes”
There was a time not long ago at all when this wasn’t true. You learned about it in womyn’s studies; it was called “marriage”, the institution that had to be destroyed in order to “free” women. Well, you’re free. Cya around.
The simple fact is this: I believe that men would, all other things being equal, prefer marriage over bachelorhood. But the deck is too stacked, and men who are not yet fathers are better emotionally equipped than childless women to face a future without kids. Your biological clock is a nuclear bomb, honey. Mine ain’t.
Why do I suspect that you just came here to poke the bear?
September 24, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Roger Knight said,
Even if it only refusing to pay the alimony and child support.
September 25, 2007 at 1:02 am
amfortas said,
September 25, 2007 at 4:45 am
christianj said,
Brilliant Artfldgr…
The feminist’s wish list.
September 25, 2007 at 5:48 am
NotNOW said,
Are you really complaining about women getting custody and support, and saying that you’ll have to help your new husband pay support to his ex? Talk about the pot and the kettle….there’s a solution to this, it is called shared custody. I didn’t see anything in your article about it.
“Women are increasingly entering the workforce, leaving their children in daycare or with babysitters. Their supposed ‘extra emotional’ side is failing to show and stop them.”
But it is NOT failing to saddle them with a monumental amount of guilt, which they immediately project onto everyone around them, demanding “higher quality” child care, “free employer-provided” child care, endless paid maternity leave, blah blah blah. “I am not happy and someone had goddamned better fix it!!!!”
“our cherished values, such as marriage…”
Huh? You haven’t been lurking here long enough. Most of us wouldn’t save marriage if it was drowning in six inches of water.
“My friends are mainly intelligent, successful women in their 30’s who are tired of men taking them for granted,”
I feel your pain. My friends are mainly intelligent, successful men in their 40’s and 50’s who are tired of being 1) raped by the family court system; 2) denied access to their own children by their ex’s; 3) portrayed as either idiots, rapists, murderers or control freaks on TV; 4) Thrown out of their own homes.
“men are only interested in superficial things as if they’re prostitutes”
There was a time not long ago when this wasn’t true. You learned about it in womyn’s studies; it was called “marriage”. Men and women both made HUGE compromises and sacrifices in order to make it work. Men and women actually looked past each other’s differences. But sadly, the institution had to be destroyed in order to “free” women. Well, you’re free. Cya around.
The simple fact is this: I believe that men would, all other things being equal, prefer marriage over bachelorhood. But the deck is too stacked, and men who are not yet fathers are better emotionally equipped than childless women to face a future without kids. Your biological clock is a nuclear bomb, honey. Mine ain’t. You lose.
Why do I suspect that you just came here to poke the bear?
September 25, 2007 at 6:28 am
NotNOW said,
But it is NOT failing to saddle them with a monumental amount of guilt, which they immediately project onto everyone around them, demanding “higher quality” child care, “free employer-provided” child care, endless paid maternity leave, blah blah blah. “I am not happy and someone had better fix it!!!!”
“our cherished values, such as marriage…”
Huh? You haven’t been lurking here long enough. Most of us wouldn’t save marriage if it was drowning in six inches of water.
“My friends are mainly intelligent, successful women in their 30’s who are tired of men taking them for granted,”
I feel your pain. My friends are mainly intelligent, successful men in their 40’s and 50’s who are tired of being 1) raped by the family court system; 2) denied access to their own children by their ex’s; 3) portrayed as either idiots, rapists, murderers or control freaks on TV; 4) Thrown out of their own homes.
“men are only interested in superficial things as if they’re prostitutes”
There was a time not long ago at all when this wasn’t true. You learned about it in womyn’s studies; it was called “marriage”. Men and women both made HUGE sacrifices to make it work. Men and women actually looked past their differences. But sadly, the institution had to be destroyed in order to “free” women. Well, you’re free. Cya around.
The simple fact is this: I believe that men would, all other things being equal, prefer marriage over bachelorhood. But the deck is too stacked, and men who are not yet fathers are better emotionally equipped than childless women to face a future without kids. Your biological clock is a nuclear bomb, honey. Mine ain’t. You lose. Welcome to the war.
Why do I suspect that you just came here to poke the bear?
September 25, 2007 at 6:56 am
PolishKnight said,
MIke’s doing an audiofile from Women: Theory and Practice that should be available today that partially answers this. It’s called, “The Exquisite Example: The Male Preference for Younger Women” and is a subchapter from a chapter on lies and the media.
Hello Bernard (Next time you’re in DC, come by for some coffee at the Spy Museum)
When I started seriously dating, I was simply looking for a decent looking (yes, shallow but let’s get that out of the way), pleasant, fertile woman to settle down with and have a family. I was willing to consider well educated and even older women (note, I was in my mid-20’s at the time.) I think I was quite flexible.
The problem is that most of the women in their 30’s were either in panic mode (and untrustworthy looking to have a kid and maybe stick the man for child-support) OR too settled in their ways and demanding. They had aged and had more to demand of men, but not a lot more to really offer men that the men couldn’t do for themselves. (If he has a 6 figure salary, her income is irrelevent.)
Women friends confess to me that women age and get “set in their ways” making it even harder for them to adjust to married life. It’s possible but the question becomes: Why work so hard for someone when there are plenty of younger women who are less demanding and more attractive?
Younger women aren’t perfect by any means. Many are just younger versions of the same crabby women in their 30’s but they’re easier to impress and figure out.
“Being taken for granted” is what men have been dealing with for the past 100 years. These women should ask men for tips.
September 25, 2007 at 1:40 pm
tallachigh said,
September 25, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Roger60601 said,
September 26, 2007 at 12:49 pm