That was an actual headline in the Domion Post today. The story goes like this:
Callister said the most significant finding of his research was a 10 per cent increase in the past two decades in highly educated women marrying men with fewer qualifications and, in many cases, lower-paid jobs.
This had happened largely because of a lack of eligible partners of equal educational or economic status, he said.
In many cases women are marrying men with lower paid jobs? They must be truly, truly desperate.
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Horrors!
I’m going to demand a pay cut and send back my PhD so more acceptably superior men are available for me.
If this is actually true, and the gap is that big. That women are marrying “down” isn’t a sign of desperation, but more a sign that the feminist mantra has taken hold finally. These women are merely following advice that I’ve seen several prominent feminists advocate. (Sorry, but I can’t remember names, but I do recall Amp posting on some of this).
I’ve seen that suggested by feminist writers as well, as a way of reducing women’s dependency on their husbands, and to prevent the situation where it just makes sense for the woman to be the one who sacrifices her career for the couple’s children, because she “just happens” to be the lower earner.
I’m not sure how much this is a cause of the supposed trend though, most women I know don’t tend to base their decisions on what “feminists say.
I also wonder why this is seen as a problem – why it’s ok for a man to marry a lower-earning or less educated woman, but if it’s the other way round it’s a sign that something is wrong.
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isn’t this a good thing? i thought the practice of women ‘marrying up’ meant that women generally don’t have much economic power of their own.
No, I don’t necessarily think this is good. I’m not sure who these feminist pundits are, but I don’t see them supporting househusbands or semi-employed layabouts. The research I have seen suggests that men who work less than wives actually tend to do even less at home than fully employed men. Even while many “macho” men embrace the idea of not going to college or being fully employed, that doesn’t mean that their going to pick up the slack on the home front. According to the studies I have seen, these women will simply be assuming more responsibility for family breadwinning while seeing no decrease in duties on the homefront. Some deal.
That may be Silverside, but on the bright side, in those cases where the woman becomes fed up she will be more likely to land on her feet and be even happier than she was.
Maybe they love these men.
It appears that the problem stems from women’s irrational fears of marrying men who don’t fill out their census forms.
Who knew?
In the US, the percentage of undergraduate and graduate degrees going to women is well over 50% in most fields. Blacks recieving degrees are overwhelmingly female. (Ok, that sentence sounds funny, but you know what I’m trying to say.)
It’s not hard to imagine resulting social trends: Yes, better-educated women marrying less-educated men. But also growing acceptance of alternatives to traditional marriage: Remaining single. Out-of-wedlock births. Polygamy/polyandry. Prostitution. Homosexual relationships, at least on the part of woman, as bisexuals abandon hope of finding suitable male partners. Perhaps growing acceptance by men, too. But, simultaneously, a growing resentment against all these alternatives, felt by the growing percentages of men who find themselves unable to attract a mate.
And I could imagine these dynamics being more pronounced among blacks. Whereas marriages between black men and white women are growing more common, incidence of marriages between white men and black women remain comparatively rare.
(I haven’t seen any analysis of gender disparities in education among other racial groups.)
Also be prepared for the fact that if you, as a woman, become the “family breadwinner,” you will also be treated as a symbolic male in court should you decide to divorce. You may lose custody of your children to your underachiever/underemployed ex, and will pay him child support and maybe alimony, even th0ugh the economy is still geared towards paying males more than females, especially for jobs requiring academic lesser skills.
Then you can decide if busting your a– to get through business school or law school was worth it, just so you can support some guy who could be self-supporting (unlike a woman of 40 years ago), but CHOOSES not to.
Feminists are very naive sometimes. During slavery, many African Americans had advanced trade skills by the standards of the time. But it didn’t mean diddly, because they didn’t reap any financial benefit from their skills; only their owners did. With emancipation, many slaves may have hoped that they could move up the ladder with hard work. No such luck. Now they were driven out of the north (not to return till the mid 20C), and banned from practicing or training for certain trades. Those who managed to prosper anyway were terrorized by the Klan and similar groups.
I’m not saying that all men relative to women are like the Klan. Individual circumstances differ. But for the class of abusers, drinkers, and/or chronically lazy who manage to twist all circumstances to their advantage, having the woman assume the responsibilities of breadwinning just means she’ll be pimped off of for life, or at least till the kids are grown, whether she divorces him or not.
Silverside, don’t you think the woman is still in a better position than she would be if she were the one “marrying up”, in that she is financially independent and probably owns the family home, and if the relationship broke down she is in a strong position.
As for custody of children, I don’t have any idea whether the woman woudl be treated “as a man” by the judge – do you have any evidence of that? Also to imply that being treated like a man is a bad thing in that context you would have to believe that the system is currently biased against men. I know a lot of people do believe that, and I’m pretty sure it’s been debated to death here before!
Of course the non-custodial parent should have to pay child support regardless of gender, I do see your point about the wage gap, but we’re talking about a situation here where the roles are reversed and the woman is earning more. So I’m not sure that the average case is relevant.
Strange, I thought I was marrying him for love.
And since I married him, he’s finished his Master’s and is now “more” qualified than me – or does my 10 years of job experience balance that out?
Either way, I’m the one paying the bills.
MissPrism said:
“Horrors!
I’m going to demand a pay cut and send back my PhD so more acceptably superior men are available for me. ”
Don’t you do it, Miss Prism! I’m going to get my PhD any second now – just as soon as I matriculate!
signed,
A Gentleman
Here are three examples where the media took note of working mothers either being threatened with a custody fight or having custody taken away from them.
Marcia Clark, prosecutor of OJ Simpson was challenged for custody of her children by her ex-husband because of her “grueling workload” that allegedly “harmed her two sons” according to the judge (Cheri Wood, 1995).
Sharon Prost, Chief deputy counsel to Senator Orin Hatch lost custody of her two children to her husband because the judge reasoned, “Ms. Prost was more devoted to, and absorbed by, her professional goals than her responsibilities at home.” Her ex-husband had been unemployed for 30 months in early 1990’s and the judge stated, “The best [parenting] may come from the parent who is less successful” (Newsweek, 1995 March 13: 3).
In 1999, a Florida appellate court overturned the trial court’s custody award to the mother, a corporate lawyer. The appellate court denied the Miami mother custody of her two children because she worked long hours. This decision was overturned on appeal, and is being appealed again by the husband (New York Times July 15, 1999).
I also lost custody of my daughter, though I was hardly a big time lawyer or anything at the time. Just a 40-hour-a-week government job. However, the ex had developed a pattern of chronic unemployment that he used to market himself as a “primary parent” or “stay-at-home” dad. So though I have a bachelors degree from a seven sister college as well as a masters, it does no damn good in terms of being self-supporting, because I have to support my daughter and her father and his girlfriend who just does substitute teaching now and then. They have a house, I have nothing. No financial security now. No retirement in the future.
If you marry a guy without a lot of commitment to work, at least go in with your eyes open. With a “gender neutral” judge, combined with old-fashioned suspicion/hatred of working moms, all your academic qualifications and work experience can actually be turned against you. Just be aware of that.
Silverside,
What a heartbreaking story. I cannot imagine being seperated by my son.
Do you have no custody? Or do you share? If he was granted full custody, you have absolutely been screwed. Men have the same experience when women are granted full custody…they feel they are supporting the other parent and their lifestyle. However, the custody laws are pretty tough to get around in the states where I have pursued this issue ( NY and CO). For a court to deny any custody,actions/abandonment have to have been quite egrigeous. I hardly think a professional work ethic qualifies.
Intrestingly I pulled up this blog thinking it was about something else. Another single mother with whom I teach ( neither of us married to the fathers ever) were discussing our difficult lifestyles, but agreeing that it was better than the other option: being married to the “NOT Mr. Right”. We decided the lesser of two evils was better for our self respect, our boys and the advancement of womens’ qualities of lives.
Yes, this may seem sad…but the fact that marriage is a contractual agreement that has failed to level it’s benefits 50/50 in all areas make it too scary a position to enter. As lonely as I am for a good man in my life, I sleep with the reslove that I am of a new generation of women that are willing to make the tough choices to do what is best for the women ( and hopefully men) of the coming generation.
Stay strong ladies.
kathleen
Silver, I’m sorry and that situation sucks. However, it isn’t always the case that a man that stays home will not be a good “house husband”. My ex husband fell into the former category and I gave up my academic goals to support us.
My second husband lost his job a few years ago, and given that I am in a position to be able to afford it, I told him he could stay home for awhile and figure out if he wanted to try to find another job in his field or go back to school. He chose to take two years off, and in that time I did not do any housework or run a single errand. In fact, he is better suited to being the “stay at home” parent than I would ever be. But ours is an egalitarian partnership, and everything from the housework to the finances is handled fairly. I learned my lessons well in my first marriage.
My husband eventually returned to the work place, and though satisfied with his job, he often misses being with the kids.
Thanks, Kathleen. Frankly, I do think it’s better overall to remain single.
Unless you are utterly certain in your choice, and don’t be afraid to be picky. Believe me, the temptation to “marry down” can utterly backfire.
Technically, it is joint custody, but he has physical placement. It really means nothing, because with an dominating, abusive personality, you don’t co-parent, regardless of what the idealists think. So far, our county courts have really done nothing to enforce visitation, so it’s really at his whim. He goes through periods when it’s bad, then eases off for some reason.
I’m in western NY, and the level of corruption around here is just astonishing. GALs who leak their reports to one parent, but not the other (not once but twice). Evaluators who didn’t even contact both parents for an interview. The ex’s attorney who actually admits in court that he “interviewed” (e.g. coached) my daughter is his office, a big violation of professional ethics, but nothing happens. There just seems to be almost nothing one can do, short of collective action of some sort. I don’t know much about Colorado, but there are many MANY complaints in New York State.
Marrying a man with fewer qualifications and a lower paid job doesn’t have to mean marrying a layabout. It depends on where you’re starting, after all. My husband makes a lot less than I do, even though he’s employed full time (as am I), but he does more than half the housework (including *all* the laundry), and a fair share of child care (he took at least half of the days necessary to stay home with the kids when they were sick or take them to the doctor and dentist).
What matters is that he values his contribution to our family even though it’s not in dollars, and so do I. He doesn’t have to prove he’s a man by earning more than I do (or anyone else).
Silverside,
Where in WNY? I am outside Roch, but am from Youngstown.
I replanted here from CO from where my original orders came. MY NCP lives in VA and has not attempted visitation, so knowing anything to help me in the possibility of that eventuality is good. What is a GAL? WHat do you feel is the position of the state court in regard to fathering ? My situation is an 8 year span (all childs life) of abandonment. There is no standing order as he never pursued any part of first temporary agreement. I become anxious about him merely appearing because he has decided, today, that he wants to be a father.
kathleen
Silverside,
No, I don’t necessarily think this is good. I’m not sure who these feminist pundits are, but I don’t see them supporting househusbands or semi-employed layabouts.
The mating game is always played out in a personal, and limited, arena. That’s what we see about us and most people don’t internalize the broad societal forces which shape the confines of their personal lives. So, men and women will continue to interact but as the supply of “high status” males shifts there will be either a.) more competition for those males, b.) women coming to terms with lower status males, c.) women learning to prefer lower status males as they redefine gender relationships, or d.) broadening their search for higher status males. Color me pessimistic, but I think that the path of least resistance will be option d, which I wrote about here. If the male qualities that attract women today become short in supply in tomorrow’s single males, well there are always those males who are already married who will become fair game. The choice for the high achieving woman is whether to settle for a single man who doesn’t quite fit the bill or win over the married man who is a better fit for her. She’s likely a younger woman than the married man and in our society we find that youth is a powerful attractor.
I just wanted to throw out the option of married men being drawn into the pool of candidates as being an easier path to solving the “good man shortage” than the option of learning to love nintendo playing eternal boys.
Why is this assumed to be a change only or principally on the part of women? Men have historically preferred to “marry down,” and doubtlessly many still do. It could be men’s attitudes toward marrying up that are changing.
No, historically men have not married down. For a good part of history, men, at least of men from more powerful families, married into “better” families to cement alliances. In the more modern era, marrying the proverbial boss’s daughter was always the way to move ahead. The working class girlfriend, even if more sexually “liberated,” was a drag on future plans. Maybe nice for a mistress, but not good enough for a wife (remember Theodore Dreiser and An American Tragedy?) Presently, youth and good looks can override class origins, education, or income, but not entirely. There is some evidence that in an economy where two incomes provide for a little more family stability, young men may be checking out the income potential of their future mates as much as the other way around.
Silverside – do you have any statistics about men marrying up in recent times?
Kathleen –Rochester is not good. Recently I heard about some GAL who was hauled up on charges of fabricated qualifications (no degrees at all, when she was claiming a doctorate). BTW, a GAL is a guardian ad litem–they are supposed to represent the interests of the child. She had stripped at least one mother of custody. I suggest you go to custodyprepformoms.org for support and info. Best of luck! I really feel for you. Don’t panic but do prepare yourself and arm yourself with all the research you can.
You may lose custody of your children to your underachiever/underemployed ex
Why is staying home “underachieving” or “underemployed” when a man does it?
I would expect for my husband to have primary physical custody if, God forbid, we were to divorce. He’s the primary caretaker of the children. I don’t see how it’s being treated as a ‘symbolic male’ if the primary caretaker gets primary custody.
Good question, mythago. My husband experienced some of this when he was staying at home as the homemaker and caregiver for our children. It was as if as much as society has progressed about what a woman’s role should be, the same isn’t true for men.
Even my feminist friends often remarked that he was sponging off me and being lazy, when some of them were stay at home mothers and homemakers. So, they were devaluing the work my husband was doing simply because he was male, and I asked them why the status they conferred on themselves didn’t apply to my husband.
I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this phenomenon?
“I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this phenomenon?”
boy howdy, in spades!
as a sahd and being disabled and being overly large (person of size or as i prefer, just plain ol’ fat), i am assumed to be a “burden” on my wife. never mind the fact that i take care of the home and the children. because i’m here, she’s able to work and school (to get her some serious, transportable job skills) full time. this issomething she would not be able to do if i were here. one of them, probably school, would have to give way to child care, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, errand-running, etc. etc.
people assume i’m lazy and sponging off my wife. yet if i were working and she were a sahm, no one would assume that. when i’m asked, “don’t you miss working?” i want to say, sure, i miss having a only 40 hour work week instead of a morning to night nonstop job. except i think i’ve got the greatest job in the universe.
long before we had kids, my wife & i discussed this situation. i’ve pretty much always loved child care. my first job as a teenager was in a daycare for special needs kids. she’s always been much more involved with things outside the home – friends, work, hobbies, etc. so it was a natural extension of our tendancies that she work & i stay home, not a factor of “lazyness”, my disability, or my size.
yet friends and her family are always trying to get her to leave me for someone who isn’t sponging off her or being such a burden. i’m totally lucky she’s an independent woman who loves me and doesn’t listen to them
sorry about the italics. my close italics tag didn’t work :(
[That’s because you accidently used an “a” instead of an “i” in the close italics tag. No problem, I’ve fixed it. :-) –Amp]
uh, I presumed that this was a post with much sarcasm. as in, “man marries secretary? alas!” or “normal guy dates bimbo? what has become of men?!?” — imagine, women figuring that they can branch out in their definition of a “good match,” beyond those who impress them to those that care about them, of whatever rank or class. the only pathetic thing is the way that the reporters are describing things…
(p.s.) there have been recent studies showing that well-educated women are *more* desirable, rather than less (media meme be damned) to men, although I’m not sure how much that answers questions about “marrying up” among men…
Silversides, I’m not glossing over your obviously painful personal experience, but I’m going to have to take exception to the idea that a man who “underachieves” by being the primary caretaker of the kids deserves to lose them and spousal support upon divorcing.
If Marcia Clark’s children, for example, were primarily taken care of by her ex-husband, why should she get primary custody after a divorce? I would argue that to even fight for such custody wouldn’t be in her children’s best interest. Obviously, abuse and addictions change everything, but in general there s nothing unfair about primary caretaker parents getting custody with child support, be they male or female.
I have to laugh at how this article presents the phenomenon of women marrying men who are less educated/make less money than they do is a bad thing! Rather, I see it as a victory for feminism. Now that women have their own money, higher education, access to credit in their own names, are starting their own businesses in droves, etc. they can look at what a man has to offer them in terms of his personal qualities and not as a “walking wallet.” To me, this is a giant step UP.
Remember Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice, who had to marry odious Mr. Collins because the alternative (staying single) was so bleak and he was her only chance? Today’s Charlotte Lucases have so many more alternatives, thanks to the feminist movement.
And if you don’t want to marry a “lazy layabout” – well, perhaps taking a good look at what the man is like BEFORE you marry him will help. Marry a man who is kind, has goodwill toward you and commitment to your relationship, and is industrious and dependable. These things can’t be measured by credentials.
Just curious.
I read a lot of opinions on divorce, custody and primary caregivers after divorce. But let me ask you all this: if both parents work full time and both divide up the parenting fairly evenly (ie there is no clearly identifiable primary caregiver) who should the kids go to if they divorce?
When my father was a SAHD in the 70s and 80s, you could watch the phrase “He stays home with the kids” bouce off people’s foreheads, it was so strange to them. And then they’d never bring it up again.
Better? Worse?
It might be that it isn’t so much that women’s standards have lowered, but that women themselves are becoming more and more likely to be college graduates, make more money, etc.
What’s so wrong with having a house husband? I’ve had one. I’m too busy working to do the laundry. It’s not that he was or is (did I mention there’s a new one, although I didn’t marry this one and am not even sleeping with him) lower than me, he just does the dishes better and he likes to pull weeds.
The real problem is when we working women have doormats who do nothing, now that will not work. But if he can whip up a good meal, give a good backrub and some good ____ lickin’, then by God he can have some of my paycheck. Bless him.
craichead, they’re not a CD collection.
yet friends and her family are always trying to get her to leave me for someone who isn’t sponging off her or being such a burden.
You forgot the quotes around “friends”.
Mythago said,
“craichead, they’re not a CD collection.”
Yes I know. I’m asking an honest question. The primary caregiver standard makes a lot of sense, but at the same time it’s becoming common for parents to both work and both divide up the parenting pretty equally.
So in a case like this where a marriage ends in divorce, how should custody be determined?
As I understand it from the few long-term studies that have looked, craichead, the best thing for the kids is for them to stay in the family home and have the parents move in and out of the house alternately for their parenting time. (Presumably the parents each have their own studio apartment or whatever home is possible on their budgets, plus support the children’s home.) This is only an option for people whose joint income can support three homes *and* get along well enough to share one of them (because the children’s home will have the furniture and goods, and cleaning standards and so forth, that the parents have to share).
Second best in my opinion (unsupported by any study) would be for the parents to live as close together as possible (in the same building, next door, on the same block, or at least close enough to walk) and share care of the children as equally as they can manage and mutually desire. The kids would have a bedroom in each home and could bounce back and forth at their will, so long as the parent is home in that place. That is, the parents might negotiate with each other and the kids what times they have other commitments that make it inconvenient to have the kids over–situations in which they might be getting a sitter or sending the kids to grandma’s if the parents’ relationship were intact. This is what I proposed to my children’s father when we divorced, but he didn’t choose to stay in the neighborhood.
Isn’t divorce/ custody/ child support payments a separate issue, really, from so called “marrying down”? Obviously these marriages can end in divorce like any other, but I don’t see really how the age old heartbreaks and lack of good solutions is any different if the woman makes more money or works more hours, or if both share financial/ home duties more or less equally.
Elena,
I guess in theory if the woman is better situated financially then in the event of a divorce she isn’t left in the cold without a means to support herself or her children, if she had any.
But, in a sense you are right in that “marrying down” is a separate issue from those of divorce/child custody/child support. And I guess that means that the thread has wandered a bit.
I’m married to a kind, intelligent, beautiful man who’s eight years younger than me and makes less money than I do. I didn’t “marry down” at all. He’s actually more educated than I am. He’s just at an earlier point in his career. He does at least half the housework (probably more), and we make each other very happy. Every woman should be so lucky. A good husband is better than a cash cow (bull? LOL).
Or maybe, just maybe, they are marrying for love.
An interesting tidbit from Stephanie Coontz’s Marriage, A History (pg. 404, note 11): As late as 1967, three-quarters of American college women interviewed said they would marry a man they didn’t love, as long as he was able to provide them economic security.
Again, I repeat: Women “marrying down” is a cause for rejoicing. It means that women can choose their husbands on the basis of love and compatibility, rather than what he can offer them economically. I surmise that many of these New Zealander women are not “settling” because they are desperate, but are choosing to marry men they love, and ARE free to choose because they have good educations and decent jobs. Three cheers for feminism.
I think there is still a big difference between equal partners who trade off supporting one another, say, like my cousins did — “I’ll support you through med school, you support me through law school” — and “marrying down” to some guy who demonstrates no ambition or desire to educate or improve himself. Over a lifetime, the latter will become a rock around your neck. You may think it’ s peachy keen to trade off for a year or two, and it can be. But when you are saddled with a deadbeat, you have no options. If you ever want to take even a teeny bit of time off for a decent maternity leave, you’ll never have that option. Or a year off to get your novel finished. Or a chance to finish your masters without working two jobs. All because you have a hubby who believes he is above decent paid work.
Many people have a cheery, sanguine view of these things. But most “stay-at-home” dads are not middle-class guys in some quasi-feminist relationship, but working class guys who don’t have jobs (a disproportionate are actually Black and Hispanic). That means that from a cultural point of view, they often don’t care to do the housework either, because that is “women’s work” . I don’t think that women are being “patriarchal” by considering earning power in future mates. I think it’s being rational, and giving yourself a few more options.
Silverside said,
“But most “stay-at-home” dads are not middle-class guys in some quasi-feminist relationship, but working class guys who don’t have jobs (a disproportionate are actually Black and Hispanic).”
Can I ask you what you base that assumption on please?
Another thought I have on the equality of housework, is that I don’t think any study I’ve seen ever really defines how much NEEDS to be done say based on square footage of living space and the number of children, etc. I mean if one’s home and family require 15 hrs per week in order to have a moderate level of cleanliness etc, why should we count it if someone puts in 20 hrs because they want it perfect rather than moderate?
Thanks for this discussion. Right now I am dating a man who is vastly less educated than I am, and makes much less money. I’m trying to figure it out–alternating between guilt about the fact that I am considering his social position as equal to (or more important than) his kindness/humor/love, and feeling like I deserve to have someone with an education who can intellectually challenge me.
Kai Jones,
I’m not trying to be disrespectful or anything, but I found your post on managing kids after divorce really interesting, and I have a question. If a divorced couple is able to share THAT much in order to do what’s best for the children, then why divorce? If you have to stay that close to each other, go to a marriage counselor and figure out how to stay married. That’s how to really not disrupt the lives of the kids!
Like I said, I don’t mean any disrespect. My parents were divorced and I’ve watched my good friends try to make divorce arrangements. It just seems like all of the work and compromise could be put to better use if it were working out how to stay together instead of working out how to seperate.
Katy,
I can only speculate about other people (and I will in a second paragraph), but I can say that for myself and my first husband, once the personal issues between us were determined by divorce and we no longer had the relationship expectations (and disappointments) of a married couple, we were mostly able to parent our kids together on a daily basis (that is, by phone for the parent whose house they were *not* at that day). What I expect from my husband in the way of behaviors and attitudes toward me is very different from what I ask my ex to do as a father, and taking away those expectations (and my frustration with what I saw as his failures) left plenty of room for tolerance, good will, and compromise on my part about our parenting. But if I’d had to stay married to him, to share the house with him, to observe at least in form the social niceties of marrage, and if I had refrained from dating and learning to love someone else, I doubt I could have overcome the hurt and frustration (which would be renewed on a daily basis by the continued failure of the marriage) and been as good a mother as I managed to be. In other words, it was the divorce that freed us from the emotional stuff so we could work out how to share parenting.
I believe that will be true for some number of other divorced parents, but I am sadly aware that many people don’t disengage emotionally from their divorced partner and play out their problems through struggles over the kids. This is a great evil in my opinion.
Disclosure: my parents separated when I was 5 and each had subsequent relationships, both formal and informal; they parented the old-fashioned way for divorced parents, that is, my father had almost no contact with us, not even yearly visits until I started asking for them as a teenager.
I wonder if anyone is looking at the wonderful state of the black community since the Sixties. There is a huge difference between an engineer male marrying an MBA female and a Mechanic male marrying a baccalaureate female.
Since the dawn of time (no statistics to back this up) men’s only contribution to society as a whole has been to support and protect their family. Women on the other hand have provided the fabric of society, provided sustenance, provided love, support, education and growth of our citizens. This littany of contributions of women to our survivial greatly overshadows the minimal, but necessary contribution men give. Slowly men have become less relevant in society as women have taken control of the support and men have been pacified. The results of this shift can be found in Grecian history and more recently in the black and hispanic community.
Large groups of men without the social restraint impressed upon them by the woman in their life leads to nothing but disaster. Saudi Arabia is a perfect example of what happens when there are large groups of men without a woman in their life. Dispair, subjugation, misogyny and violence. Closer to home you can take a walk around West Philly (my home) or Detroit.
Of course equal partners is the best way to couple. Women can meet their need for personal fulfillment and men can continue to provide economic and physical security for their family.
Sarah (entry Number 3) is right. There is nothing wrong if women are out getting a better education and better jobs. The thing that is wrong is that women, even though they may be more educated, do not get paid as much as a less qualified man doing the same job. Also, the other thing that is wrong with this picture is that guys are less educated than the women is the fact that maybe those guys just don’t have what it takes to go to school and get an education or they are just to lazy. Any way you slice it the only one’s screwing up on this whole deal is those that make the policy. Generally “they” are middle-aged, rich white men. Just so you all know that is not a racist comment considering the fact that I am also white.
This is just the way things have been since the birth of our country. Women had little say in how things went back in the beginning. They have a lot more to say now, but everything in this country isn’t changing as quickly as it should. There should be more women in politics and I think there should be a Democratic Woman in the white house, as the president if I wasn’t clear enough.