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.
It’s not just appearance, but also impressions people have of femininity or lack thereof — or masculinity or lack thereof — in the personality. Asian women, generally speaking, are considered most feminine, black women least feminine, white women in between. Black and Hispanic men make up for some of the relatively low education and socioeconomic status, etc., by the generally impression that they are the most masculine. White men may also represent a physical ideal for Asian ladies, but for white ladies, the physical ideal seems to be a Hispanic man. There is also considerable physical attraction for black men.
Most of the Hispanic men I have seen have a certain weak look to them. The only Hispanic I found attractive was half Caucasian.
Are you a native-born American woman, or originally from Hungary? I think attitudes toward white vs. Latino men may be different among European immigrants. It’s also different, perhaps, among those from somewhat, or slightly, “darker” ethnic groups. I’ve dated Latina ladies, for example, who found white men attractive for a variety of reasons. Latino men were not new and exciting to them. White American women tend to fall for them. In part, I think that’s the thrill of the new and unfamiliar, or the childish illusion that “the grass is always greener” on the other side of the fence. Women often being childish in many respects, just as men often are childish in other respects.
It’s also possible that being in Southern California, with huge numbers of Hispanics and perhaps slightly atypical white women, has distorted my perceptions of American women’s attitudes as a whole.
My ancestry way back is Hungarian. I was born and raised in America. I am half Caucasian and half Mexican. Although I raeely claim the Mexican side, since half the time most people wouldn’t believe me.
But, yeah, about the Latina women preferring white men. My mom did not like men who were not white.
I’m a classic Anglo, but I love certain types of Hispanic ladies. They light my fire. In a couple of cases, I’ve been lucky enough to light theirs!
I hear what you're saying, but the stats show that most Oriental women who marry outside of their race are American-born. Which would you say are more feminine - American-born or foreign-born Oriental women? I vote for the latter. And yet most American men go for the former. I figure it's got to be looks.
Half-white and half-Mexican is usually very a pretty combination.
Concepts of beauty change—hopeful it’ll change by a lot, and soon.
No, they often come from bigoted parents.
Complicated questions you raise. There is more interracial dating, and interracial attraction, than interracial marriage. Marriage being about much more than attraction, if the partners are being smart about it. Obviously, American-born Asian women are “whiter” culturally than immigrant Asian women, on the whole. I unfortunately have no experience dating American-born Asian ladies, only immigrant Asians. But I think both groups seem equally feminine — which is not to say that all the ladies in either Asian group are. Generally, I’d say American-born Asian ladies are somewhat, or even, better-looking.
They're your kids, but seems that the values of potential boyfriends should trump what people group to which they belong.
But they wouldn’t have such staying power if they didn’t have a significant degree of truth.
You all are clueless. The reason asian women prefer white guys is so simple and plain it’s silly. It’s got nothing to do with the size of anyone’s manhood you dopes!
Asian immigrants simply have a desire to assimilate into american culture. THey actually want to be americans and not some stupid a$$ hyphenated american. That leaves out black american males because hip hop and gang bangers and al sharpton types go to great pains to shun americana and be a burden to society. No one wants anything to do with hip hop. He11, even black women and black immigrants want nothing to do with hip hop and african-american males immersed in that sick diseased culture. Mexicans and orientals want even less to do with them.
This hyper desire to assimilate also happened with irish and german immigrants. My grandmother who was part irish shunned her irish ancestry and actually denied it. She was darned near ashamed of it. She was a WASP and any talk otherwise was fightin words to her. That sounds strange today, but it is true.
The reason asian women can’t explain their desire for a white man is simply because it’s embarrassing to explain why your own kind is undesirable to you.
There is also the strange phenomena of mixed race children being more attractive than their relatively racially pure parents. I chalk it up to “hybrid vigor”. Look it up for a description of what it is. I know a little about animal breeding, and it is a well documented fact that pure breed puppies are less intelligent and less healthy than f1 hybrids(first generation hybrids of parents of two separate pure breeds). However, I don’t know why white genes and chinese genes combine so well compared to other racial mixes. They just seem to go together like peas and carrots.
Most examples of beautiful oriental women that white guys like to cite as examples of oriental beauty are actually rarely oriental. They are usually f1 hybrids of mongoloid-caucasian mixed ethnicity or even f3 or back crossed to white...meaning greater than 50% white for those of you not familiar with animal cross breeds.
There was a time when europeans considered american women to be of superior beauty to their own women. THe belief was basically that there was a sprinkling of native american blood in american whites that “improved” the breed. The native american race is very similar to oriental. So it’s the same phenomena as whites mixing with chinese. BTW, it was also a common belief among african americans that blacks with a small amount of native american blood were of superior beauty to those without it. Just a coincidence? NO, not likely.
I’d add this. It’s my impression that foreign-born Asian women are, on average, in comparison with Asian-American ladies: less confident as individuals, less comfortable or uncomfortable with sex (and even dating), more likely to live with parents even at rather late ages, less affluent, less stylishly dressed, less familiar with the culture, less educated, and needless to say, often with very poor English language skills. Whether they’re more feminine or not, they’re at a big disadvantage compared with Asian-American ladies.
(both California, Texas--the two most populous states--and New Mexico and Arizona(?) have no 'racial' majority, if Latinos are not considered to be of European descent (even though a lot are)).
Arson suit.
Having traveled extensively through half-a-dozen countries in East Asia, I'd have to disagree. However, to each his own.
Indians at least still have a lot of arranged marriages. They go to India and get a spouse there. For Filipinos, as Roman Catholics, they wouldn’t tend to marry non-Christian Indians.
The desire to assimilate has a lot to do with Asian ladies’ attraction for white men. In addition, women in general are attracted to money and power. Asian ladies are particularly (shall we say) pragmatic about such things. If a guy seems good in other ways, being white is an additional evidence of money and power, or a greater prospective chance of these things. But there are other factors at work, too. Several Asian women I’ve dated have said Asian guys tend to be too short. Also that Asian guys tend to be less romantic, less sensitive, less communicative, and less likely to treat them as equals.
Hey, that’s what they tell me ... I’ve never dated an Asian or any other man myself ... so don’t call me a racist ...
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