Posted on 05/11/2007 9:18:14 PM PDT by teldon30
One of the more delicate areas I dealt with while running a dating service for more than two decades was the issue of race, and more specifically racial stereotyping by prospective members.
Stereotyping in itself is a volatile issue, and at some point during intake interviews, I often repeated the phrase “While there is some truth to all stereotypes, there are certainly many exceptions to every single one.”
However, when one is dealing with a sample of more than 20,000 single, divorced, and widowed men and women, I feel confident and comfortable making certain statements in a column titled The Truth about Dating.
Yet I was still hesitant to write this column, until a reader sent me an article from The New York Times, in which the author, John Tierney, published a story about racial preferences in the dating world.
Moreover, the article cited a study titled Racial Preferences in Dating that documented the preferences of more than 400 participants in speed dating sessions at Columbia University. A quick reading of both the Times article and the Columbia study seemed to support my own anecdotal findings.
(Unfortunately while reading the Columbia study I was overcome by the academic verbiage that authors of such studies feel compelled to use. Do they teach “Boring Writing 101” at Ivy League institutions of higher learning? I found it impossible to read more than a few pages without getting a headache. Here is a sample sentence: “Rates of inter-racial marriages thus capture both preferences and socio-geographic segregation.” Huh?)
Anyway, here is what I found in 23 years of interviewing singles, and I will attempt to communicate in my best “non-academic” language. When we interviewed prospective members, we always asked what their preferences were in terms of meeting people of different races.
Overall, women of most races preferred to meet men of their own race. Most Caucasian women wanted only to meet Caucasian men, the exceptions being women who were more educated and well-traveled, who considered themselves somewhat “worldly.”
Of all the races, African-American women were the most insistent about wanting to meet only African-American men. But most of those women excluded black men who had recently moved to New England from Africa or the Caribbean.
The one major exception to the finding that women wanted to meet men of their own race was Asian women, a vast majority of whom stated that they strongly preferred meeting non-Asian men.
The primary explanation offered by most Asian women was that they wanted to be matched with tall men, and they insisted that practically all of the Asian men they knew were short. But when I would ask if they would be willing to meet an Asian man if he were tall, most would simply shake their head and say they would rather not.
And what about Indian women? To be honest the sample of Indian women who joined my dating service more than 23 years was too small to determine any general statements about them.
As for men, overall they were far more open to meeting women of other races. In fact, and I find this especially interesting, the race of women most in demand were, you guessed it, Asian women. Therefore, almost all of the Asian women in my dating service had a very high Dating Quotient.
When I asked men to explain their preferences for Asian women, many shrugged and admitted they were just extremely attracted to them. But I also believe that many of these men, consciously or subconsciously, wanted to meet women who fit the stereotype of the submissive “Geisha girl,” whose primary purpose is to entertain and please men.
Interestingly enough, though, most of the Asian women we interviewed could not have had personalities more opposite than that passive stereotype. Many had Ph.Ds., M.D.s, or law degrees, and were extremely assertive. (Especially when I tried in vain to persuade them to consider meeting Asian men!)
Unfortunately for African-American women, most of the African-American men who joined stated a strong preference for meeting either white or Asian women. Many expressed the identical view, “I don’t have to join a dating service to meet women of my own race.”
The two groups of men who were the most difficult to match (and therefore had the lowest DQ) were Asian men and Indian men. Like African men, this was especially true of Asian and Indian men who had grown up overseas and relocated to New England, usually to pursue careers either in computer science or medicine. In a few cases I could persuade women to meet men of different races, IF the men were totally “Americanized.”
Of course Asian men were difficult to match because, as I previously stated, the one group of women who did not want to meet men of their own race was Asian women.
As for Indian men, they were the hardest people to match of any group of men or women of any race. And, with so many Indian men moving into the Boston area for jobs in high tech, rarely a week passed without several inquiries from men from India or Pakistan.
One reason they were difficult to match is that only a handful of Indian women joined over the decades, compared to hundreds of Indian or Pakistani men. But another is that many women, even the self-described “worldly” ones, expressed the stereotypical belief that Indian men had antiquated views of women.
To some extent, these women were correct. For example, of all the men I spoke with who wanted to meet women much younger than themselves, the largest group was, in fact, Indian men. Many told me that it was quite common back “home” for men to date and marry women at least a decade younger than themselves. And they wondered why they could not do the same here … which further lowered their DQ.
So that is the story from my own anecdotal experiences. Again, I am sure there are exceptions to every statement I made in this column. On the other hand, if you want “scientific” proof of what I am stating, just Google and download a copy of Columbia University’s Racial Preferences in Dating study.
But I suggest that if you do, make sure you have a bottle of aspirin nearby.
At age 56 and never married, I've pretty much limited myself to women of any race just as long as they're still breathing (no democrats tho)......
The key, especially for the fairer-skinned ones, is to stay out of the sun! Tanning is almost suicidal for a white woman's looks. I've seen some white women in their fifties who don't look too bad at all (Jane Seymour springs to mind), but none of them ever tried to maintain a dark tan in defiance of biological reality. ;)
“The advertising I saw sold it as some sort of story about how men are easy to get and can be thrown away in a cocky manner.”
The moral of the story was the exact opposite.
My point is that the movie was marketed to women with issues. So I wonder, was it marketed to women with issues, or to young women as a whole?
Back on topic, post 185 also provides evidence American women are more screwed up than the men.
It was a romantic comedy which appeals to most American women, not just “screwed up” women. This day in age, women do have problems but men do too - I think you are being too quick to paint an entire gender with a broad brush. I sense a little bitterness..
You seem intelligent so I’m kind of wondering why you aren’t paying attention to the points I’m making. Going so far as to continue on a red herring and getting a little tense about it. Could you hold a little tension on this subject?
I don’t see anything of substance in your post 185. Exactly what are the points to which you want me to respond?
“Most that have come here from Cuba and have some sort of education and know how terrible communism can be are conservative.
However, most of the 20 million or so Illegal alien invaders are from Mexico and several other latin american countries that are totally corrupt. The great majority of these folks are uneducated and will support whomever will offer them the most freebies. ie Dimocrats”
Illegal aliens can’t vote and are unwilling to risk deportation by showing up at polling stations. By the time folks get citizenship and voting rights, they tend to be pretty well educated on the American political system. In 2004 only 8% of the electorate was Latino and only 8% of the electorate had incomes of under $15,000 per year.
The vast majority of the electorate is white (77%) and middle income or above (85%).
Oh now you’re being silly.
“Well said and more evidence women are more screwed up then men. Only in the bluest of blue states do men attack other men for being masculine.”
???
I believe American women in general are more screwed up than American men.
I backed this up by saying that anti men attitudes are being used to sell movies, and American women look down on other women for being feminine.
My post in 185 made my second point...can anyone imagine men attacking other men for being masculine. No, they would be laughed at. But American women for some reason believe they are above being feminine for some strange reason. Surprise, American men are coupling with Asian women like never before.
It’s like you have a chip on your shoulder. Why is that?
The feminist movement has eroded the roles of men & women in society. Women are taught they their only self-worth is their career and that men are optional. In turn, society’s morals have all but disappeared and women are perceived as nothing more than sexual objects. Women are now competing with men instead of playing the (more important role) of their husband’s biggest cheerleader.
I don’t disagree with your assertion that many women have begun to act like men (not feminine, aggressive, ambitious). But I disagree with your assertion that women are “more screwed up” than men and I think you are painting with too broad a brush. The traditional woman in still alive and well in America today. She loves her husband and her family more than herself and has found much self-worth in making her home the kind of place in which her husband and children feel safe and secure. It sounds like our experiences are very different - I know many women like the one I just described. You obviously don’t and for that, I pity you.
My experience is that most Westernized women have more issues than USA Today. I think a lot of men simply want less complicated relationships.
Okay, you are obviously being ridiculous and argumentative. My point is the same as yours - society has changed and thus, women, as a whole, have been affected in a negative way. There are lots of exceptions. All the women in my family are like the one I described in my earlier post. If it makes you feel better to think women are “more screwed up than men” and that therefore Asian women are better than American women, go right ahead. It’s no skin off my back - I was just suggesting that you not paint with such broad a brush when there are MANY exceptions to the American woman you are describing.
Where did I “get nasty?”
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