Posted on 10/28/2011 5:09:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
Kate Bolick stares out at the world from the cover of The Atlantic magazine. She's wearing a black lace evening dress. "What, Me Marry?" asks the headline. She isn't smiling.
In fact, she isn't smiling in any of the photos that accompany her several thousand-word essay on singleness, marriage and the changing nature of dating and mating in America today. Bolick, 38, is groping toward accepting the idea that she may never marry. She badly wants to convince herself -- and us -- that older ideas about "unhappy" spinsters are silly cultural baggage best dropped off at the curb. And yet, there are those glamour shots -- Bolick behind the wheel wearing a fetching red dress; Bolick in a gold evening gown holding a glass of champagne; Bolick in a black cocktail dress -- but her expressions range from pensive to sad -- never happy.
Bolick seems genuinely conflicted about marriage. The daughter of a committed feminist, she marched off to third grade "in tiny green or blue T-shirts declaring: A WOMAN WITHOUT A MAN IS LIKE A FISH WITHOUT A BICYCLE." She recalls that when she was cuddling in the back seat of the family car with her high school boyfriend, her mother turned around and asked, "Isn't it time you two started seeing other people?" She took it for granted, she writes, "that (I) would marry, and that there would always be men (I) wanted to marry."
So sure was she of the limitless romantic opportunities available that at the age of 28, she broke up with a wonderful boyfriend. They had been together for three years. He was "an exceptional person, intelligent, good-looking, loyal, kind." Why did she discard him? "Something was missing."
Ten years later, she writes somewhat (though not entirely) ruefully "If dating and mating is in fact a marketplace . . . today we're contending with a new 'dating gap,' where marriage-minded women are increasingly confronted with either deadbeats or players."
There is a great deal of interesting data in this piece. According to the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of Millennials and 43 percent of Gen Xers think marriage is becoming obsolete. As of 2010, women held 51.4 percent of all managerial and professional positions, compared with 26 percent in 1980. Women account for the lion's share of bachelors and masters degrees, and make up a majority of the work force. Three quarters of the jobs lost during the recession were lost by men. "One recent study found a 40 percent increase in the number of men who are shorter than their wives." Fully 50 percent of the adult population is single, compared with 33 percent in 1950.
But these trends, however interesting, shed only an oblique light on the problem of the decline in marriageable males. Bolick edges closer to the truth in her discussion of sex.
"The early 1990s," she writes, "witnessed the dawn of the '"hookup culture"' at universities, as colleges stopped acting in loco parentis (actually they relinquished that role in the 1970s) and undergraduates . . . started throwing themselves into a frenzy of one-night-stands." Some young women, she notes, felt "forced into a promiscuity they didn't ask for," whereas young men "couldn't be happier."
According to economist Robert H. Frank, "when available women significantly outnumber men . . . courtship behavior changes in the direction of what men want." And vice versa. If there's a shortage of women, the females have more power to demand what they want, which tends to be (surprise!) monogamy. On college campuses, women outnumber men by 57 to 43 percent.
But economic analysis can take you only so far. Men's capacity to insist upon promiscuity rests completely on female cooperation. And women have been foolishly compliant for decades.
They've conspired in their own disempowerment, not because they love their sexual freedom (though a few may), but because people like Gloria Steinem and Ms. Bolick's mother convinced them that the old sexual mores, along with marriage and children, were oppressive to women.
The resulting decline of marriage has been a disaster for children, a deep disappointment to reluctantly single women and unhealthy for single men, who are less happy, shorter-lived and less wealthy than married men. The sexual revolution has left a trail of destruction in its wake, even when its victims don't recognize the perpetrator.
Also, for the same reason people are hesistant to buy a house that’s been on the market for a long time. Even if the house looks great, you’re going to wonder why it hasn’t sold yet.
Blame no-fault divorce. Around 80% of divorces are filed by the woman. The system is brutally rigged against men. It is a foolish young man who marries in the US. There seem to be fewer and fewer fools.
I don’t know, I’m pretty much a beta guy, or even a gamma. Not an omega, though.
And my wife is fantastic looking. She still gets hit on by 30-somethings, and she’s 62. Of course, she works in a mental hospital.
“And I think that is why a lot of marriages fail. First big argument and it’s over. “
Depends on how the man handles it. The important thing to realize is that most arguments that a man has with women have nothing to do with what the argument supposedly is about*.
*Unless it´s about you having cheated with her best friend, etc. Then it´s really about what it supposedly is about.
**For more on this, see “Sh*t tests”.
My son was recently dumped by a girl who told him he was “too sweet”, “too kind” and she didn’t get any “tingles” when they held hands. (Since he is an honorable young man, he kept the physical relationship at that level, saving the best for the marriage.) He has been walking around the past several weeks like a zombie, wondering what he did/didn’t do to cause such a reaction. When he questioned her about her reasons, she forbade him from talking to her for a month, telling him he’d be over it then. How can a good man be “too kind”?
“I don’t know, I’m pretty much a beta guy, or even a gamma. Not an omega, though.”
I´m curious, what makes you rank yourself so low on the totem pole?
I was assuming they’d experienced profound conversions.
My ex-wife used to have a key chain fob that had that saying on it. Her mother detested me as the main problem (I was an active drunk and very problematic, but not "the problem"). In the 23 years since we went separate ways, she got into some sick and abusive relationships and remains in a sick one now. Her mother has opined that she wishes that her daughter had found someone like me to be paired with (I got sober about the time we split - can't blame her, but it makes a good anecdote). I have now been in a good marriage for 20 years with a woman who was not afraid of the inherent differences between the sexes and whose mothe (Bless her departed and loving soul) loved our relationship.
I have seen very few "feminists" who seem happy deep down where it counts, but have met many women who are happy despite the fact that they are being "oppressed" by letting a man take a manly place in the relationship...
“My son was recently dumped by a girl who told him he was “too sweet”, “too kind” and she didn’t get any “tingles” when they held hands.”
“How can a good man be “too kind”?”
Your son was lucky in that he got reasonably good advice. This is the iron law of female mate choice laid bare - men who are sweet, kind, etc. will tend to actively repel women. Women want strong, manly, assertive men.
Tell your son to be more assertive around women, and less eager to please. He is a man, and should feel free to act like one.
Indeed, he should respect himself more, and his attitude should be that it is the woman who should prove herself worthy of him, not the other way around. That will most likely work wonders, and be some of the most valuable advice he has ever received in his life.
The same as the serpent's promise to Eve: power over Adam. It's hard to see the immediate gratification in being a "helpmeet," and the job description can look pretty grim.
I have two girls I home-educated, (17 and 19 now, sheesh). Both are in their third year at JC planning to fly the nest next year. Both see the type of woman depicted here and shudder, choosing to remain chaste. One has a steady companion (not really a boyfriend), a decent young man studying for medical school. Shen knows what she wants and it's to be a mom (she's a double major in microbiology and civil engineering). The other is too smart and independent for her own good but has a streak of kindness, particularly for animals (wants to train race horses). We'll see.
I’m with you. I don’t agree with some of the reasons, but some of it is spot on. I do have one that so closely resembles what happened to my first 20 year marriage that I have saved it. I am shocked continuously at how many men comment that it is what happened to them. Someone posted it here a long time ago. Here it is:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Divorce.shtml
It is almost like Fred interviewed me before writing that piece.
There's a pretty active wimmin-haters club on here. There was even a guy who had an anonymous website where he sold a book about hating American women--
“I have seen very few “feminists” who seem happy deep down where it counts, but have met many women who are happy despite the fact that they are being “oppressed” by letting a man take a manly place in the relationship... “
Women want the man to take charge, but they will constantly challenge the man´s leadership. If the man meets up to the challenge with confidence and aloofness, the women will be happy with her choice of man.
If the man becomes submissive, or flustered when challenged, the woman will conclude that her man is weak, and she will become unhappy.
Congratulations!
Is that why all the stories (and I do mean ALL) I have read for the last several years about teachers fu**ing their students involve female teachers?
It is as odd as the sudden increase in the average Japanese citizen by several inches in a single generation.
That is, something is going on here.
LOL! Let ‘em experience that up there and convert the heathen in situ, as it were.
The key to understanding male contempt of women or female contempt of men is that it is almost always based in a lack of understanding about the true nature of the opposite sex (usually brought on by popular contemporary delusions about “gender equality”).
Once one understands and accepts the true roles and behaviors of fallen men and women, and their respective strengths and weaknesses, there is little reason to work oneself up over it. Rather, you try to make the best of the world as it is.
Too many people can't count.
It’s hard to be offended by stuff that you think is pathetically risible ... or risibly pathetic, depending on the time of day.
I feel sorry for men with those attitudes, just like I feel sorry for the woman who’s the subject of the article, just because I’d hate to be that kind of person.
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