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.
Yikes! She could have been attractive, and I would think a professional photographer could have made these pictures beautiful given her figure and features, but somehow that didn't happen. No one would make fun of any poor guy stuck with her, but no one would envy him either. She looks like a walking case of frostbite.
“A lot of men believe that, and then a lot of women believe, on their side, that the “winners” are those who can get the cads and players to have sex with them. “
That´s one of the core errors that women make. The hard thing isn´t getting the attractive male to sleep with you (provided that you are yourself moderately attractive), it´s making him stick around.
Needless to say, today´s slut / cad culture makes that a pretty difficult project.
“6) Watches porn on the internet instead of asking a nice girl out for a coffee.”
Because every time I ask a nice girl out for coffee, she says yes?
More like “no” because she’d rather over-serve me beer and bar food for tips.
I agree with you. Government pays people to avoid using good sense and practicing good morals ... and then everyone is Shocked! at the outcome.
Swell article, K. Thanks for posting.
w, s, marriage ping....
This was all predicted by George Gilder back in 1973. In quite some detail.
http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-suicide-George-F-Gilder/dp/0812903811
Oh, I didn´t mean to say that you are wrong, I just wanted to add some long-term perspective.
Personally, I´m drawn to Voegelin´s perspective, I.e. that this kind of substituting wishful (albeit illogical) thinking regarding this world for God has been with us for a very long time, and that it follows a rather predictable pattern.
“No values other than “self-actualization” which is a bankrupt ideology.”
Bankrupt with a good enough credit rating to ruin other people’s lives.
Needless to say, civilization loses out bigtime. As do most women, as feminism has the side effect of actually diminishing the supply of desirable men for women.
For the last several thousand years, civilization has been supported by the tendency of men to want to have a wife and family, and being willing to work hard to provide for their families. A man who is single and does not see much hope of getting a wife will work just hard enough to furnish himself with food and beer.
This whole thing rested on women NEEDING to have a husband to support and protect her, and not having a choice but to accept the best proposal she seemed likely to get before 30.
It’s not always sex first. Of course sex does enter into it.
For better or worse women are independent now.
Many women earn more than their husbands.
If they have an argument , there isn’t any financial reason for them to stay so they hit the road.They don’t have to work out their problems.Many don’t even try. At the first sign of trouble they are gone.Many times the sex comes later.
agreed. And the “therapists” love to control other people’s lives.
“Therapy” is a home-wrecker.
I’ve been married for almost 23 years; call it half my life, give or take a couple of months. I only know about “today’s culture” from reading about it, and if I meet these people in Real Life, I don’t know it. (Maybe my local Walmart is full of total crazies, but they’re acting like perfectly pleasant people, at least to me.)
This is what I have told my children about dating/finding a spouse (to our son and our daughters). First, looks are on the outside. They fade. You may as well marry a poster of someone good looking if that is the primary criteria. Second, find someone who understands the value of marriage. You aren’t just looking for a mate but someone who will father or mother your children. Third, compassion and kindness is a true value of someone. How do they treat their parents? How do they treat another person like a waitress or a person on the street asking for directions? Fourth, do they believe in God and do they live their lives as a good person? Fifth, how do they treat you? If they bully you or ridicule you during the dating period, they will turn into a monster after the marriage.
** In short, I think as a society, we have turned to characteristics like money and physical appearance OVER true human values. If some great gal hasn’t snatched you up yet, Bluelancer, it is just a matter of time!
Yep, turning the average (and below average) man into a family man is one of the cornerstones of civilization. That cornerstone is now slowly but surely being hacked away at.
I know this to be true; my wife is a Prov. 31 woman to the core. Of course, we both had to find ourselves in Christ first . . .
My comments about sex had to do with the social environment where sex sex sex is everything.
For example, a married woman who hides cheating successfully can get a man on the hook for child support even if the baby isn’t his.)
A cheating wife can get her pissed off, angry husband a pretty good prison sentence when he goes nuts. Have an associate doing time right now.
However, you can’t pay child support while you are in the graybar hotel. That got the woman’s attention.
You are right, Sherman Logan. Money and looks... that is just shallow. Whatever happened to “grow old with me?”
Depends a lot on where you live, I reckon. The old traditions still have a lot of following, but that´s not where the world is headed overall.
Also, note that the upper-crust liberal elite de facto is very conservative in their private lives, I.e. they practice a high degree of monogamy and marriage themselves. All while preaching the virtues of “non-traditional” ways to the proles.
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