It’s pretty clear that the ascendancy of the alpha female comes at the direct expense of males. When women flooded the workforce, the number of jobs did not magically increase to accomodate us. We displaced men. Regardless of how you feel about women’s rights, they changed society’s landscape dramatically and those repercussions are strongly felt today, including in the area of mating.
Look at these graphs recently published in The Atlantic:
Those numbers will continue to climb. These estimates are very much in line with my own observation that one-third of today’s female college graduates will not have the opportunity to marry a man of similar education.
(Fun fact: Portland is in green because it is thought to explain the reason that Schlubby Jacob (the author’s characterization, not mine), from a recent post on online dating, has any options at all.)
In 1983, Marcia Guttentag and Robert Secord posited the theory that in female-heavy populations, men would become more promiscuous, and that in male-heavy populations, they’d become more faithful. Much of their thinking seemed to be confirmed in an analysis of 117 countries by Scott South and Katherine Trent. The pair found that, in developed countries, having a higher ratio of men led to more marriage for women, less divorce, and fewer illegitimate children. Other studies have had similar findings across cultures and time.
…In the contemporary U.S., academics have found that female college students are less likely to have a boyfriend or go on traditional dates, and are more likely to have bad feelings about the men on campus, at schools that enroll disproportionate number of women.
What we do not know is whether significant numbers of women will marry men with less formal education than themselves.
The 2001 study Education, Hypergamy and the “Success Gap” tests this claim by Maureen Dowd:
“Women moving up still strive to marry up. Men moving up still tend to marry down. The two sexes’ going in opposite directions has led to an epidemic of professional women missing out on husbands and kids.”
From the study’s introduction:
In general, hypergamy with respect to say, income or social status is a common finding across societies and over time. For instance, anthropologist Barbara Miller (1981) studied areas of rural north India and found that strong pressures for hypergamy implied a lack of suitable husbands for high caste girls. This created a disequilibrium that wasresolved through female infanticide. In another context, the Talmud (a set of ancient writings outlining Jewish laws and practices) advises men to “go down a step to take a wife,” (Yevamot 63a) , and states that “a woman from a more distinguished family than her husband may consider herself superior and act haughtily toward him” (Rashi).
Mare (1991) and Pencavel (1998) find that there has been an increase in positive assortative mating with respect to education; i.e., spouses’ education has become increasingly similar. Schwartz and Mare (2005) study marriages among younger couples and report a decline in hypergamy over time in this age group.
If hypergamy remains constant, a greater concentration of women at the top and men at the bottom of the education distribution will lead to a decline in marriage rates for these two groups.
Using census data, the study found that hypergamy has decreased over time for women with more education:
The results for men are consistent with this prediction; however, those for women are not. In fact, the data suggest that for women, education was substantially less of an impediment for marriage in 2000 than in 1980. The marriage market accommodated the shift in part through a decline in hypergamy at the upper end of the education distribution.
| % | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 |
| Hypogamous | 26.3 | 25.2 | 27.4 |
| Same | 36.1 | 38.8 | 41.7 |
| Hypergamous | 37.6 | 35.9 | 30.9 |
| Net Hypergamy (all) | 11.3 | 10.7 | 3.5 |
| Net Hypergamy (Ed. <12) | 27.2 | 40.2 | 45.4 |
| Net Hypergamy (Ed. > 12) | 4.5 | -4.1 | -18.6 |
However, while the marriage rate for women peaks at four years of college, it begins to decline after that point.
| Years Education |
Women 40-44 Ever Married |
| 8 | 83% |
| 9 | 86% |
| 10 | 87% |
| 11 | 85% |
| 12 | 91% |
| 13 | 90% |
| 14 | 90% |
| 15 | 89% |
| 16 | 88% |
| 17 | 87% |
| 18 | 85% |
| 19 | 86% |
If we do witness a sharp increase in hypogamy, or women “marrying down,” what is the likely effect on marital relationships? A very recent study, Gender identity and relative income within households produced four key findings, quoted here:
1. Within marriage markets, when a randomly chosen woman becomes more likely to earn more than a randomly chosen man, marriage rates decline.
Across all census years and marriage markets, the likelihood that a randomly chosen woman earns more than a randomly chosen man is about 0.25 (using either measure of income). This likelihood has increased steadily over time, going from 11-14% in 1970 to about 31-32% in 2010.
[Our] results highlight the importance of relative income considerations for marriage formation. The secular increase in the aggregate likelihood that a woman earns more than a man from 1970 to 2010 can explain up to 29 percent of the decline in the rates of marriage during that period.
2. Within couples, if the wife’s potential income (based on her demographics) is likely to exceed the husband’s, the wife is less likely to be in the labor force and earns less than her potential if she does work.
Having the wife leave the labor force is a very costly way to restore traditional gender roles. It is less costly for the wife to simply reduce her earnings to a level that does not threaten the husband’s status as the primary breadwinner. [We found] evidence for such behavior.
3. Couples where wife earns more than the husband are less satis ed with their marriage and are more likely to divorce.
We fi nd that if the wife earns more than the husband, both spouses are 6 percentage points (12%) less likely to report that their marriage is very happy, 8 percentage points (33%) more likely to report marital troubles in the past year and 6 percentage points (46%) more likely to have discussed separating in the past year.
4. The gender gap in non-market work is larger if the wife earns more than the husband.
Our analysis of the time use data suggests that gender identity considerations may lead to women that might appear threatening to their husbands because they earn more than they do to engage in a larger share of home production activities, particularly household chores.
Across all census years and marriage markets, the likelihood that a randomly chosen woman earns more than a randomly chosen man is about 0.25 (using either measure of income). This likelihood has increased steadily over time, going from 11-14% in 1970 to about 31-32% in 2010.
The bottom line: Even if you are willing to marry a man with less education than yourself, you should choose a man who outearns you. The male instinct for dominance in provisioning is strong and has not been affected by shifting gender roles.
If you are determined not to be in that one-third of hypogamous marriages, and wish to marry someone of similar or higher education, your best strategy is to focus on dating for marriage as soon as possible after college. If you do decide to go to graduate or professional school, you should select a program with a good sex ratio.
If you hope to stay home with children, then you must marry a good breadwinner.
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Honestly my first reaction is “laughing all the way to the bank”. Then I shared this with my friend who went to Columbia and is marrying a Harvard-educated girl now in med school, and he reminded me that even he is technically “marrying up”. Maybe not so good….
“Having the wife leave the labor force is a very costly way to restore traditional gender roles. It is less costly for the wife to simply reduce her earnings to a level that does not threaten the husband’s status as the primary breadwinner. ”
So a really good strategy for women is to move to places where the cost of living isn’t high so that they can live on a 1 income salary, and pick up sewing skills, and especially homesteading skills, something we’ve been steered away from to make good consumers (even though we could save thousands, if not ten thousands a year with these two skill combined).
“The bottom line: Even if you are willing to marry a man with less education than yourself, you should choose a man who outearns you. The male instinct for dominance in provisioning is strong and has not been affected by shifting gender roles. ”
Just have to be cautious about letting men know that you’re purposely selecting for those who outearn you.
The reason men’s instinct to provision for a woman hasn’t diminished is because the male role, for some reason, never actually transitioned.
While it’s impossible to say how much of this is inborn, and how much of of it is socialization, one of the key problems in this imbalance is that feminism has been very good at encouraging the male role to stay the same while women explore the boundaries of their own.
For instance, feminism’s insistence that women are hypoagents, and victims, and need special favors and so on in order to operate on the same level as men can actually stimulate the protector instinct in men and reinforce gender roles, at least from a male perspective, for both men and women.
Feminism also strongly discourages men from viewing themselves as anything other than “traditional” men. When men identify a real problem they’re experiencing, feminists downplay it and try and sweep it under the rug.
The point isn’t to rag on feminism, because feminism isn’t directly the problem. Since we’re still stuck in survival mode, as a society, the problem is that everyone, regardless of their stance on social issues, still thinks of men as those tools of the past.
It would be interesting to see how these perspectives on earnings and so on would change, if only we could change the way we view these roles.
For instance, men might not mind being pushed out of the workforce and making less if it meant they could spend more time with their family. More importantly, if women didn’t look down on them for it. However, so long as these men are viewed negatively as “layabouts” and man-childs, and so on, that won’t happen and men will continue to miss out….And so will women for that matter.
I honestly can’t think of any men except the most “macho” of men (that is men still stuck in a frame of mind that just isn’t relevant anymore) who wouldn’t want to be able to have more time to play with the kids and work on his car or whatever his hobbies are, and pursue things that bring him fulfillment rather than bringing the family money.
I’ll bite and ask this very naive question.
In an age of supposed equality, why are women so concerned with marrying someone that makes more than they do?
Isn’t equality what they strove for?
What if we are an alpha female that has a man that doesn’t want or care much about out-earning us?
how about those 25yrs women, instead of focusing on career, would look at +5-10 years older guy, who will surely outearn them?
simple solution, right?
@Ashley
“What if we are an alpha female that has a man that doesn’t want or care much about out-earning us?”
then do something to stop the rapacity of the others Ashley.
“alpha” females as well as the others have been artificially propped up with the acquiescence of men. do these girls put civilization first??? no. they’re going to have to have their goodies taken away and begin their descent. civilization comes first.
Money is not the only metric one should consider when it comes to a relationship or marriage; you have to consider the entire package. If a low earning man is able to perform tasks that a high earning woman is not able to (heavy lifting, plumbing, auto maintenance, whatever it may be) then they very well might be an excellent fit despite the income disparity.
No one person can do everything. It’s all about what is brought to the table as a whole and looking solely at bank account numbers is short sighted.
Using myself as an example: I’m not completely rich but fairly affluent (think in the top 5-10% of personal income). Therefore, I am more or less unconcerned with how much or little a potential mate makes, so I am going to look for other qualities. As I avoid pointless, transient status-mongering and continue my path to early retirement, my desire for a potential mate’s income will decrease even further. I’m looking for someone to complement me, not compete with me.
I think alpha females would do well to follow a similar mindset.
Notice where Austin and SF are? FML.
That’s interesting to me. I had thought the men were greatly outnumbered in SF.
Also, why is the United States listed with all these other US cities? Is that bar for the national average or something?
It seems that college degreed men have far more variety of women than ever before. There is the vast pool of college women and the always massive pool of non college women.
I feel the need to point out that education, though an excellent predictor, is by no means the only factor involved in income.
Nor is it any real demonstration of intelligence.
WTF?!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!
Abbot!!!!!!
Where is the multi-penis slut shaming.
Mind blown.
Ah, but can it be a slut marker?
“Where is the multi-penis slut shaming.”
define “slut shaming”
What it really comes down to is that the best guys (top 10%) are NOT going to marry Alpha chicks (i don’t think the term is even right, women really don’t seem to have the hierarchy that men do) but the attractive, feminine girl that works at Costco.
Once again for the cheap seats:
High Value Men don’t date masculine traits like MBA’s because they are not high value to rearing adjusted, quality, nurtured kids NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK AS A WOMAN, and
High Value (top 10%, the guys most in demand) doesn’t “marry down” when you ladies are all turning yourselves into hyper-masculine men. The baseline shifts and now you are Low Value, get it? He is marrying up!
For emphasis: You degree’s and ability to exist in “a mans world” (really? look around) makes you irrelevant. You just lost to the girl who says “do you want fries with that”.
@ SayWhaat
The men greatly outnumber them, but whatever women there are are much more likely to be educated, so the college-educated numbers still end up leaning towards the women. Also, I’ve heard anecdotes that the City is different from the rest of the Bay Area in that many of the SF men are gay so hetero-women actually outnumber hetero men. I don’t know if there’s any truth to this or it’s an overestimate of the size of the gay community, as I don’t really spend any time in SF. Also, being a hip city, it’s the kind of place where young women tend to congregate, in contrast to Silicon Valley, where young STEM guys congregate.
I presume it’s the national average.
“Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn’t the dream destroy reality ?”
- George Moore
There are so many tears in this arid existence; that for once … that for this moment … that for this instance … what might be labeled as a foolishness in this quote … should truly be seen as a call to faith.
Fuck ‘em all.
“Ah, but can it be a slut marker?”
Nvm all is right with the world.
Apocalypse aborted.
“define “slut shaming””
What you normally do.
“You just lost to the girl who says “do you want fries with that”
and the dark long-haired captivating girl pushing the towel cart down the hotel corridor
.
“define “slut shaming””
What you normally do.”
details please
All this, of course, is irrelevant in a country full of no-fault divorce. The male provider role is still expected, without any of the authority. Also, he may still be punished at will.
Doing all the work expected to maintain a family, then not getting the family. Modern marriage in a nutshell.
Also, there’s this:
http://www.returnofkings.com/3917/the-matrix-is-getting-pissed
“High Value (top 10%, the guys most in demand) doesn’t “marry down” when you ladies are all turning yourselves into hyper-masculine men.”
Thats “slut shaming!”
Whatever that is
.
I am not too concerned. I think men will be at the front of a changing educational shift (online learning, etc.). Many young college women are heading down a path they will likely regret. Getting yourself in lots of debt and graduating with a degree with little job prospects is not appealing as a partner. Sure they may out earn you at some point in the future, but they are debt slaves until those massive loans are paid off.
@Irish Farmer
Whoa, I never thought of that. That’s either brilliant on the part of feminists, or more likely, a lucky break.
My first wife was 17 years my junior and had only two years of high school. Yet, to my surprise, the first time I showed up in a social gathering of my Jedi peers, I realized that she was not “Mrs. Jedi Geek”, I was “Mr. “!
Still, she did take a college-degreed man out of the mating pool until she realized that she really *didn’t* want to give up her super-high-social-status career to be “just” a mother after all.
“Education” is not the only new “one-way assortative hypergynous mating criteria” western societies introduced in the 20th Century to further skew their effective sex ratios. The other was “GIB”. (“good in bed”) The real problem with a woman having a high “N” is that if she runs into one of the rare men who are really fun that way, she won’t marry one who isn’t.
@IrishFarmer
+1
@Ashley
“What if we are an alpha female that has a man that doesn’t want or care much about out-earning us?”
I think part of the point is that it isn’t just the men who care. Dissatisfaction was reported by both men and women in those marriages. But it also doesn’t get into the root of that dissatisfaction, i.e. what is the origin? Is the man less satisfied because he is not the lead economic provider and thus his instinct is impinged or is he less satisfied because he is picking up signals from her that are indicative of hypergamy remorse; that she does not respect him because of this and/or is resentful of HAVING to work or not having the optionality she wants/deserves/is entitled to.
Going against hypergamy doesn’t just present unrest in his desire/ability to provision it also presents unrest in her desire to be provisioned for and the extent to which her career and earning power have *optionality*. Which is really the leavening that is baked into the message that “you can do anything”; “have it all”. If she doesn’t acquire and retain her access to that optionality, things tend to fall flat.
Women who have advanced degrees and good careers/income still desire a mate who will give them the option to scale back the work or stay home for a period altogether. They may not say this, even realize this, but at some point most will *feel* something like this.
Part of why men struggle with the provisioning and status aspect is not because they want to pound their chest and bring home the bacon, but because their role and the societal expectations have remained static while women’s have become much more dynamic. They don’t just need to provision, they need the respect.
“The male instinct for dominance in provisioning is strong and has not been affected by shifting gender roles.”
Which basically means that women have been granted increasing optionality in their gender role while men have not. There is much more to this than instinct. It isn’t so much that the instinct has not been affected, but rather that the “shifting” has not included anything nearly as accretive, positive, or expansive to a man’s choices as those shifts have afforded women. And further, those expansions and positives have too often come at the expense of men, further reducing an already competitive yet constrained playing field. How often do we hear that men are “falling behind” or “not manning up”? Behind what, manning up to what? Women Expectations (whose)? or one in the same?
The idea of a stay-at-home dad may seem modern and sweet, but while there is now the Modern Woman, there is no such equivalent Modern Man. He can assume some “modern” role, but unless he has already locked in the status and income potential its a low probability arrangement. And no man can plan for that role; not even the *option* for that role without significant risk, if not outright cost, to his ability to attract and marry in the first place. Its a limiting, self-defeating path. Men go get skills, go get jobs, build status, marry, procreate, and provision. The options come after the status, even after the marrying point for most. And hypergamy doesn’t die, in fact the bar often continues to raise. His “job” is to continue to kindle his relative status. Opting out, scaling back from those expectations will always carry significant downside.
“The bottom line: Even if you are willing to marry a man with less education than yourself, you should choose a man who outearns you. The male instinct for dominance in provisioning is strong and has not been affected by shifting gender roles.
If you are determined not to be in that one-third of hypogamous marriages, and wish to marry someone of similar or higher education, your best strategy is to focus on dating for marriage as soon as possible after college. If you do decide to go to graduate or professional school, you should select a program with a good sex ratio.
If you hope to stay home with children, then you must marry a good breadwinner.”
This is legitimately good advice for women. But, again, because of feminism and its effects on our slutty culture, it’s harder and harder for women to do this. Really, for girls who are very educated, only the absolute hottest girls are going to be able to pull this off, and even a lot of them will get played if they aren’t careful.
For your average girl (6-8 range) who takes care of herself who maybe just goes to college to get a bachelor’s degree, I’d say a big part of it is staying in shape and not coming across as a cheap slut. Don’t fuck around with too many guys like me when you’re young. We’ll ruin you for your future marriage even if you have good intentions down the road. Learn to love exercise because guys don’t care about your career, they care most about your naked ass looks bouncing up and down on their penis. Again, that’s not to say that personality doesn’t matter for girls, but what determines a girl’s core value is always going to be her looks and feminine value, not her MBA.
Sometimes I feel a lot of empathy for your every day American girl. With so much shitty advice out there from hardcore feminists, slutty friends, single moms, etc it’s easy to see why they make such bad choices with the men they bang. But I usually lose my empathy for them later because it does little good for me unless I’m forming an emotional connection with a girl I really like.
@maven11
Yes, and a very good one! That guy will be happy to get a younger woman, she will be pleased to have more than just “potential” to go on.
@Bully
I agree completely. But do you think men are really OK with earning less?
I think that this issue will go away when society starts assigning the correct value to degrees (according to subject).
Seriously, just what value should be place on a “master’s” degree in women’s studies…? just south of sweet F.A.?
You paid a six figure sum for an ‘advanced’ degree in ‘being a victim’?
when women are 60% of the graduates, but are still, mysteriously, victims of teh patriarchy? seriously? go flip burgers / pour coffees because that is all the degree is worth…good luck paying off the debt (see Cappy Cap’s book ‘Worthless’ (Aaron Clarey))
so then the trillion dollar student debt bubble bursts…national governmant follows state which follow cities into bankruptcy…government jobs collapse, releasing innumerable women into unemployment (because (in the UK) 2 out of 3 state employees are women)…
Enjoy the decline…it’s gonna be a hell of a ride ladies and gents.
As well as that issue – i.e. in addition to that
Check out Japan where adult nappies are out selling baby ones (demographic collapse) and 40%+ of men under 35/40 are checking out from women, because working their arse off to directly support a woman’s lifestyle choices is not worth it…but then they don’t earn enough to tax to support the state either, so the state collapses that way as well…so Daddy state is gone for women.
WE are in for one hell of a ride…enjoy the decline, it’s gonna be epic!
And happy Friday night peeps! I know that I had one…
The problem with earning less, from my POV, is that it really becomes more difficult to become the “captain” in the captain/FO relationship. Like, you get to make the chances…but you don’t make the money? Yeah….I think I would be a bit uncomfortable with that, and I think most men would probably be a bit uncomfortable with that.
Sorta like the janitor busting into the Board Room and telling the CEO “how its gonna be”
FWIW, I dunno….I guess I better work on improving my salary, because right now it isn’t impressive. Unfortunately, I really do not have a strong idea of how to do that, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of upward progression at my current department. One of my resolutions this year is to try to figure out way to lift my career into the stratosphere.
Or possibly low six figures by the time I am 40 :/
^^ Good post Tasmin (29). It’s insane what kind of standards feminism has imposed on men. Hypergamy never rests.
One of the easier fixes, if you ask me, is to start by making the marriage laws more fair. This would be benefiting both men and women on the macro scale. Stable marriages are good for society. It’s amazing that there hasn’t been any kind of political push for this yet.
I’m a male nurse. It’s great for meeting women, but holy hell, to function in a work environment that is 80% female (80% refers to my hospital in general. The males are mostly doctors, security guards, and janitors that come by on my unit) you have to be fully aware of feminism’s principles, parry shit tests, and just pretend to play along. If I take what they say 100% seriously and don’t establish my own boundaries, they will not find me very attractive as a man. Shit tests happen in the work place a lot, particularly when you first meet your female co-workers. I still have to show some degree of respect or else the feminocracy will eventually stab me behind my back and get me fired. Still, my career works well for me. If I never discovered the manosphere I’d have a lot more trouble.
@ Ion #2
Summation. Most men need to feel ‘needed’ in order to maintain the dominance to play captain.
Female out-earning male spouse is emasculating no matter how you spin it.
@Ashley
“What if we are an alpha female that has a man that doesn’t want or care much about out-earning us?”
But women do care about this…hypergamy. That’s not a dirty word, women have been bred by evolution to look for a provider for when they are incapacitated by pregnancy (NAWALT etc blah blah). It’s deeper than the human frontal lobes, not easily overridden by feminist ‘philosophy’ (I’m being charitable). There are societies around the world where men are supported by women to pursue economically worthless lives, because the women want men even if they have to pay for them…many men in these societies enjoy life very much, the women? nah, not so much…
You don’t get to crap on half of society without there being a bill to pay…BOGAHIC
Best take the bill up with the feminists that sold you this bill of goods. It wasn’t the men. Men’s happiness ratings have been climbing in the decades since feminism, the women’s have been declining…please don’t make me search for the stats, I’m off to bed because it’s veery early here, but they exist and they are official…
I dunno, i think that theory’s got traction. Feminists could not have gotten the gains they did without men on board, and on board they jumped.
Sure the lure of free sex for all helped, but at it’s core was the idea that all women were being simultaneously raped, beaten, and held back by patriarchy, so all men collectively prostrated themselves to protect women.
They turned our nobility against us. Classic asymmetric warfare, find an exploitable weakness in the enemy to use against itself.
Men couldn’t fuck themselves over fast enough it would seem…
http://no-maam.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/zenpriest-44-box-feminism-builds-for.html
and Abbot, thanks for “Multi-penis”! I have been jonesing for it – cheers man!
I know that Lokland started the ‘multi-penis’ conversation, but it needs to be from Abbot for me to get a nostalgic smile of epic proportions… g’night y’all
Yeah.
“It’s pretty clear that the ascendancy of the alpha female comes at the direct expense of males. When women flooded the workforce, the number of jobs did not magically increase to accomodate us. We displaced men. Regardless of how you feel about women’s rights, they changed society’s landscape dramatically and those repercussions are strongly felt today, including in the area of mating.”
This is the lump of labor fallacy.
The problem isn’t that women stole men’s jobs and wages but that men stole other men’s jobs and wages. Income/wealth divergence is a male intra-sexual phenomenon that feminists and end-of-men-ers couldn’t care less about.
As for education, the looks deceive. You can’t usually get a high-paying job without a college degree, but getting one doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll out-earn a police officer or a nurse. Women want men who have an education and a well-compensated career, but if they’re given the choice of one over the other, they’ll choose the career.
Very true. I tried to leave that option open in my remarks at the end. I think the takeaway is that education matters less than resources. In the college educated crowd, there is negative net hypergamy.
@Tillkum
The big problem with this strategy is that you will have stupid sons.
Tasmin.
Bravo. Awesome summation.
Hypergamy cannot co-exist with the current model of society.
Hypergamy was evolved specifically because the female was biologically at a disadvantage due to physical strength, ability to procure food, resources without a man’s help. All those disadvantages have been artificially removed.. yet instead of adjusting to it and picking low status men, women now use the current state of life as the benchmark AND STILL AIM HIGHER AND SHOOT FOR MORE even when hypergamy’s needs were sated.
This would be as if society suddenly found a way to surgically alter all men to become really hot bodied, tall and sculpted, and programmed with computer chips in the brain to spit out flawless game and perfect dominance, and calibration.. so that no woman could resist and they could get any mate they want.. and instead of being happy with that.. they start demanding of all the hot women they sleep with be ok with having 3some sex with other women living the Heff lifestyle as the starting point before committing to any relationship.
Biologically, you’ve overcome an obstacle or natural limitation in fulfilling your imperative.. but that’s not enough.. now you want MOAAAAR!
Seriously.
” women now use the current state of life as the benchmark ”
Thus the continuation and exacerbation of the man shortage
.
@Tasmin
Well put. I’m glad you expanded on that point. If it’s true that men would be open to more flexible arrangements – and accepting of a wife who makes more $, then that bodes well for educated women hoping to marry.
I’m certain that I would be happy married to a man who made less than I did if he were motivated and productive. But it sounds, at least from the study, that this is difficult for men, and that women feel compelled to make up for it somehow by adding “housewife” to whatever job they have.
Would a male nurse be happy to marry a female doctor?
Multipenis is a good word, but Abbot, gotta take it to the next level. Maybe “pluripenality”?
Wow, Boston and DC are that high?
That just makes it that much more embarrassing that I pounded the pavement in both of those towns scrounging for a date for YEARS when I lived there.
These statistics really bring home to you the fact that if you are a college-educated male in the US who can’t get a date, it’s not just self-pity or your imagination – you really are an incredible failure.
“Would a male nurse be happy to marry a female doctor?”
No.
@ADBG:
“FWIW, I dunno….I guess I better work on improving my salary, because right now it isn’t impressive. Unfortunately, I really do not have a strong idea of how to do that, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of upward progression at my current department. One of my resolutions this year is to try to figure out way to lift my career into the stratosphere.”
You could go to PA school.
@Susan
“Would a male nurse be happy to marry a female doctor?”
My brother is a male nurse.
Personal anecdote, no.
Interesting comment from the Atlantic article –
“Most teachers are feminist women, and they enforce a feminized teaching environment that favors women (e.g. sit still in your seat, play nice, use your words, don’t be competitive because everybody’s a winner, and especially repressing their tendency toward activity instead of sedentary learning).
Basically boys today view academic success as “women’s work” and therefore they will not invest in it. Boys want male status, and since they can’t get it through academic success, they have to achieve that status through sports, getting the cute girl, and often times drug dealing and gang-banging (inner cities) culture.
If you want to engage boys in school, then the first thing you need to do is give them good male role model teachers. Then let them innovate. Half the reason there are no male teachers in the first place is that they have this standardized bureaucracy that stifles their ability to actually do their jobs. No wonder the boys aren’t doing well (or kids in general vs. the rest of the world).
We tried to industrialize, standardize, and streamline education as if kids are sheep, but what we are finding out is that boys won’t learn in an environment like this, and it is time for something new.”
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“Would a male nurse be happy to marry a female doctor?”
No.
I’ve had a fling with a girl in med school, her being fully aware that I was a nursing student. The dynamics are very different for students, though, and it really didn’t get in the way much because I never took anything she said about school seriously. But even if the marriage laws were fixed and I was inspired to get married, I seriously doubt I’d be as happy as possible marrying and having kids with a woman who makes way more than me, and with hypergamy being what it is, I doubt she would either. Though with the institution of the kind of game that you see pushed on MMSL, things would probably play better into my favor.
But again, I go back to the point only the absolute hottest girls who went to med school, law school, etc are likely to be the ones happy with their husband. There are just less and less choices for women the higher they climb the ladder of society.
Re:Doctors/nurses
I think that a male nurse anesthetist could marry a female GP.
M3
“Female out-earning male spouse is emasculating no matter how you spin it.”
I definitely get that. Its just that you’re hypergamous if he earns more, and more likely to be doomed to divorce if he doesn’t.
Good news is that you can be non-profit drone (like me) who suckered themselves into “the greater good” and earn less than almost everyone, male and female, and works with 100% women. The bad news is that the girls in the profession with the highest sex ratio (say STEM) are more likely to outearn anyone outside of the workplace, and be pretty close to asexual at work. Impossible choices.
““Female out-earning male spouse is emasculating no matter how you spin it.”
Outearning. Outscrewing. Outsmarting themselves. The rejection of feminism is ripe…
.
@Ion,
“The bad news is that the girls in the profession with the highest sex ratio (say STEM) are more likely to outearn anyone outside of the workplace, and be pretty close to asexual at work. Impossible choices.”
Ha. This is so true. The trouble with most STEM girls is that we tend to have male-orientated brains. And yes we also lean towards asexuality, lol! Fortunately, I’ve been lucky to have close relationships with female mentors that were more feminine in dress and habit so I’ve been surrounded by positive role models so far.
Gosh, I have so much to say and think about on this subject. I feel like this post is directly related to my situation– even though I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’m an alpha female!
“(e.g. sit still in your seat, play nice, use your words, don’t be competitive because everybody’s a winner, and especially repressing their tendency toward activity instead of sedentary learning).”
I think a bigger problem is that education prepares the average C or B lackadaisical student for “liberal arts” which = WOMEN’S jobs. So women can wander into a mirage of career paths because they do/are hired in the unskilled labor “office” environment AND in traditionally male jobs. I was able to work as a secretary as a fresh graduate, and then as an entry level editor, and in special events, and many straight men wouldn’t be able to, not even in NYC. I think education is a small problem compared to the whole workforce being accommodating to unskilled women as laborers, but not unskilled men, while women can do both.
“Boys want male status”
Sometimes becoming a bus boy will get them laid plenty, but being a bus boy won’t get them respect from other “superior” males. FEAR/RESPECT from other males is important, sometimes that respect comes from a gun. If you have always had total access to the pool of low value women you want, so how can a need to compete for these same women be the thing that caused your need for dominance?
Feminism supports hip hop because it’s “cool”, it offers a pat on the back and “fuck the cops” signs to violence in inner cities, it encourages guys to “man up” with swagger and muscles, while giving a pass to men in the inner city for being victims of “evil patriarchy” and oppression. To understand feminism look at its direct target:who does it blames for “female oppression”, and oppression as a whole? Heterosexually-oriented-middle-class-privileged-cisgendered-able-bodied-white-male-patriarchy-with-infinite-adjectives.
Cool post, almost reads like an SAT question.
B) Reduce female income to zero. What is the new probability?
Given hypergamy, assortative monogamous mating doesn’t function without some sort of status car-boot on women. Polygamy seems the next viable option, with top earners pooling multiple times median income.
Bells
“Ha. This is so true. The trouble with most STEM girls is that we tend to have male-orientated brains.”
I think I can relate, though I’m not STEM. Sometimes I feel like a woman on the outside and an overly analytical middle aged male on the inside.
Though I definitely approach life and relationships with the mentality of a typical woman.
@Just1Z (33)
Bingo! Someone finally figured it out! There are degrees they hand out for having tuition money and enough sense to not burn the schoolhouse down…and degrees that demand hard work and sacrifice. Guess which ones pay well.
As Susan has said, “STEM is the new black”.
ADBG at 35: The problem with earning less, from my POV, is that it really becomes more difficult to become the “captain” in the captain/FO relationship.
I think ADBG may be getting much closer to the heart of the issue here, which is not so much money as authority. If I understand the conventional ‘spheric and HUS wisdom — which, if I might mention, is contrary to how I was brought up — then women will generally (NAWALT) only feel happy and secure in a marriage where the husband is legitimately felt, by both parties, to be “the one in charge”. In order for his leadership position to be sensible and credible, he has to “outrank” his wife in some characteristic that justifies the leader role. Many such qualities could be imagined. The classic is (1) He earns more, which by the American “golden rule” give him a kind of default authority. But alternatives might include: (2) He’s smarter/savvier/more clever, (3) He has better judgement or better temperament, (4) He has more life experience or higher standing in the community (both of these might come naturally if he’s noticeably older), or (5) He’s physically braver and stronger. (The list could be extended.)
Which qualities a particular woman finds she can look up to in a mate, and so agree that they qualify him as the natural leader of the pair, will vary with the individual of course. The key to happiness, then, will be for a woman who out-earns all her contemporaries to find some other dimension, other than money provision, in which she can honestly look up to a man and see him as legitimately above her; then, she at least has a chance of finding such a specimen.
(As I implied above, I myself do not subscribe to this “just-so” story; but I can see that it is the logical outcome of the HUS conventional wisdom.)
I’ll add something else…I think it’s possible for a oman to outearn her husband IF he has higher status in other areas. Think political power couples – I can name several where the woman is making the big money, but the man holds the high office.
I think that fewer and fewer college-educated women are going to have the SAHM option. Anecdotal evidence here, but the male undergrads most impressed with female academic qualifications as a mate selection motivator are looking at a highly educated female as a co-breadwinner; several male students who have entrepreneurial ambitions have cited the idea of marrying professional women as part of their capitalization planning.
Few men are outright saying, “I just want to marry a highly educated professional woman so that I can give her the option to be an SAHM.” Of course this will happen, but I think that this phenomenon is traditionally a product of people pursuing professional degrees and falling in love while in school. If the gender ratios in professional track programs like business school, law, and med simply go the way that undergrad has gone, the problems that young women are facing will simply infiltrate other areas of
academia.
I will speculate that many women will respond by at least trying to view marriage as one of several equally valid lifestyle options, rather than as the dominant path to a satisfying, secure life. There just won’t be enough provisioning-capable, hypergamy-acceptable men around to satisfy the demand, and economic logic suggests that those increasingly scarce men who can successfully pass these filters are going to charge an exorbitantly high price for their commitment.
We of course have a few controversial examples of how things have gone down in various ethnic cohorts when the supply of “eligible” men has been constricted; on balance, male mating activity becomes more feral and opportunistic and females who want relationships often have to accept
minimalist behavioral standards that they otherwise would not.
I also believe that the feminist attack on the traditional patriarchy archetype of the male head-of-household has been by and large quite successful and left young men with the need to create their own concepts of manhood and respect. The meme that seems to be emerging depicts an independent, self-contained “sovereign individual” who enjoys a number of hobbies and interests and who sees his tribal group of close male friends as extended family members. He views his relationships with women in a more objectified, compartmentalized way than perhaps previous generations of
men have, and he feels far more entitled to immediate gratification (notably including matters of sex).
So, this is part one of my thoughts. Sorry that it’s so long!
My parents’ marriage is an example of an intelligent woman married to a “lower” intelligent man (I felt so awkward writing out that statement. if my dad were to read this, he would smack me so bad!). Anyways, my mom has an MBA and a PhD in a STEM field. My dad has a Bachelors and a couple of certificates relating to his field of work. Point blank: my mom outearns my dad; and my dad makes a decent amount of money.
The way that my parents circumnavigated any issues of jealousy and instability was to hold up their side of the deal. My mom is very humble about her accomplishments. She never ever responds to my dad in a belittling higher-authority tone just because she had more degrees. And my dad never tolerated disrespect or any form of emasculation. Any important decisions were discussed together with both opinions holding equal weight. And in the end— my mom would leave the decisions to my dad to have the final say because he was the head of the household. No marriage is perfect and I’m sure plenty of mistakes were made. But, I don’t think he’d go on an ego-trip with his final say.. unless they’d be divorced by now.
Additionally my mom met my dad when she was doing her studies and my dad was working. From what I understand he was there to be a form of emotional stability while she strived to achieve her degrees. Till this day, my mom credits my dad for a large part of her accomplishments.
As for daily living, I guess you could say that my dad maintains a strong alpha frame around her. My mom can sometimes get easily upset or worried. In response, my dad will calm her down by lightly teasing her and just having a laidback attitude in contrast to her emotions. All this was accomplished with his 5’5 statue. That’s why I think it’s silly when I see girls writing about how they desire a tall 6’0 man in order to feel little. My dad has high respectin his manhood. And my mom naturally responded by following his directions. They are each other’s best friends and they still love each other deeply. I really appreciate the example of a good marriage that they set for me to this day.
“who does it blames for “female oppression”, and oppression as a whole? Heterosexually-oriented-middle-class-privileged-cisgendered-able-bodied-white-male-patriarchy-with-infinite-adjectives.”
IOW we blame because we can’t compete
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and pick up sewing skills, and especially homesteading skills, something we’ve been steered away from to make good consumers (even though we could save thousands, if not ten thousands a year with these two skill combined).
Despite actually being a knitter, sewer and canner, I’m always sort of amazed by the idea that these skills have real economic value in this day and age. Sure the family may enjoy that homemade strawberry jam, but by the time you’ve driven out to the country to pick the berries, bought the jars, bought the sugar and pectin, and used gas or electricity to cook the berries for hours and sterilize the jars, you’ve spent twice as much as you would just buying a bottle of Smuckers as the store. Same with that children’s sweater. A nice quality yarn, worth the effort of hand knitting, will cost more than a sale sweater.
I do all these things, but they hobbies that cost, not save, money.
Asexual? I used to work for a huge engineering department with the typical M/F ratios. There were very few single women, most married to other engineers. Even the girl with the beard. For what it’s worth, very few single men, too. The college kids would come in, either already paired off, or find someone in a few months.
My officemate was a very attractive blonde who was nicknamed “The Dana-Go-Round”. (No, I never took a ride.)
“I’m always sort of amazed by the idea that these skills have real economic value in this day and age.”
Because this was my experience. Mom was a seamstress at one point, made all our clothes (me and my bro were the same height for many years, so she just did patterns for both of us, and we split clothes), and saved lots of money being thrifty, not spending on endless supplies of toys, clothes, new appliances and electronics, new couches and furniture over the years, etc., granted, she was creative so she didn’t have to spend money on us, but it was definitely doable to raise us on a very low salary. She did spend some money on shoes for us, because, well, we constantly grew.
Homesteading in NYC is almost a movement at this point. People save money because everything is convenient. I still think a homesteading book is a must have, though it’s not the answer for everything. There’s a million ways to live on a low salary, if we have to (not to sound preachy). People have been doing it for thousands of years.
“Homesteading in NYC is almost a movement at this point. People save money because everything is convenient.”
Grr, sorry J. I meant to say homesteading is a movement in NYC, granted it’s successful there because everything is convenient, BUT I still think a homesteading book is a must have.
@Ion and Bells, I hear you about having male-oriented thinking patterns…I feel the same way sometimes as an INTJ.
Bells, I think your parents’ example is a good model of how couples of the future with an alpha wife can avoid the pitfalls that Susan talks about: Couples where the wife earns more than the husband are less satisfied with their marriage and are more likely to divorce.
I don’t know whether they purse the other course she addresses, of higher earning women doing more of the housewifery chores. Returning to her discussion, that strategy makes sense. If the woman earns more but also does the traditional thing at home, she will appear to be “less threatening”.
In addition, since more women are raised to fulfill the traditional female role, it might make sense as a matter of specialization–competence on multiple fronts: bread-winning as well as homemaking.
Bells, I wanted to highlight some of what you said, because it ties into an argument I believe Susan has made periodically, that happiness is a choice. Yes, there might be traditional pushes towards hypergamy which might make more women unhappy, but individual women have a choice to be happy (I’m drawing upon a totally INTJ logic–feelings are grounded upon one’s thinking patterns–feelings are the result of deliberate choices).
Highlighting Bells’s comments:
My parents’ marriage is an example of an intelligent woman married to a “lower” intelligent man….Point blank: my mom outearns my dad; and my dad makes a decent amount of money.
The way that my parents circumnavigated any issues of jealousy and instability was to hold up their side of the deal. My mom is very humble about her accomplishments. She never ever responds to my dad in a belittling higher-authority tone just because she had more degrees (me: and money, I would guess). And my dad never tolerated disrespect or any form of emasculation. Any important decisions were discussed together with both opinions holding equal weight. And in the end, my mom would leave the decisions to my dad to have the final say because he was the head of the household.
Additionally my mom met my dad when she was doing her studies and my dad was working. From what I understand he was there to be a form of emotional stability while she strived to achieve her degrees. Till this day, my mom credits my dad for a large part of her accomplishments…..As for daily living, I guess you could say that my dad maintains a strong alpha frame around her….My mom can sometimes get easily upset or worried. In response, my dad will calm her down by lightly teasing her and just having a laid back attitude in contrast to her emotions….My dad has high respect in his manhood. And my mom naturally responded by following his directions. They are each other’s best friends and they still love each other deeply. I really appreciate the example of a good marriage that they set for me to this day.
My comments: This works because your dad is competent as an “alpha” and in his role as the “head” of the household. Problems would have ensued if your mother found that she could not respect his competence as a “head,” ie., because he was less intelligent and thus did not have as good judgment as she.
This would have been especially problematic if they did not have equal share in the decision-making, but if he presumed that merely because he is the man that he should make all the decisions, forgetting that his wife might very well have steel-trap mind and is thus more than competent at decision making (I’m presuming here, based upon her MBA and Ph.D. in an STEM field).
Your parents’ marriage is grounded upon mutual respect, and that is important.
It seems too that this kind of marriage might work if a man is a sigma type who has very strong self confidence and who is more independent minded as a result, ie., he isn’t dedicated to traditional hierarchical patterns as an alpha might be.
@Susan (45)
But at least I get to have them, and possibly even stay in the home and co-parent them.
“who does it blames for “female oppression”, and oppression as a whole? Heterosexually-oriented-middle-class-privileged-cisgendered-able-bodied-white-male-patriarchy-with-infinite-adjectives.”
Yeah, that’s easy for you to say…
What makes a woman alpha is not the same thing as what makes a man alpha. An alpha male epitomizes what women look for in a man – confidence, being able to provide, being able to dominate other men, etc. An alpha female epitomizes what men look for in a woman – physical beauty, non-bitchiness, nurturing instincts, etc.
^^^^^^^Jeanie should teach a class^^^^^
@Ion
It is quite the conundrum. Furthermore, a new college graduate has no idea whether she will be successful in finding a mate – it seems a highly risky strategy to bet on social services to be more marketable to men, only to wind up eeking out a living as a single woman forever.
It is really a bit like asking women to be fried ice.
If it were me – if I were 22 today, I’d do the work I enjoy the most without regard to what men want. Then I’d seek a mate like it was my job. There will always be plenty of assortative mating among the educated, and I’d determinedly work to be in the 2/3 of women who do succeed. Just being aware and avoiding bad choices, which waste time – that’s half the battle.
***Handling power gracefully*** is a skill that must be learned. This is what the idea of chivalry, the code of the gentleman, etc, were all about.
Much of the propaganda directed at young women today seems not only to omit teaching such grace, but to explicitly point in the opposite direction. For example, there’s a book titled “Nice girls don’t get the corner office.” I haven’t read it, and probably won’t, but the very title is malevolent. For one thing, it’s not true–I know some very nice women who have done very, very well in business–but more generally, it is part of the “you-go-girl-get-yours-to-hell-with-everybody-else” syndrome.
I’m not sure it is so much better career success on the woman’s part that threatens relationships, but more the clawing attitude that has been encouraged.
What did people think of the drastic difference in “net hypergamy” between those with less than 12 years of education and those with more than 12? (Hypergamy here referring only to the level of education of both parties in marriages.)
It’s clear and perhaps not surprising that most college graduates marry fellow college graduates (I think around 75% of marriages.) But a pretty significant number of women with degrees already marry men with less education.
I continue to predict a sharp rise in status among STEM professionals. There are some natural impediments to that for mating purposes, as we have discussed here at length. But tech is going to dominate the economy and produce most of the innovation for the foreseeable future. At some point, STEMmies are going to figure out they deserve all the status and grab it.
@Esau
I think this is essentially the formula for assortative mating among the educated. I think women do seek a man they can “look up to.” In my case, 2 and to some extent 3 apply. 3 in particular is key for many couples I think – the man is less likely to be emotional in decision making, and more easily navigates crises with equanimity.
I know a lot of couples who met in trade school – business, medicine, law, etc. But the men generally have more gravitas – or something – that makes the pairing look almost but not quite equal.
@Mike M
I know one couple like this – the woman is a powerful lawyer and rainmaker in DC, the man teaches at Georgetown. He does more of the childcare. But she definitely is quite masculine in her demeanor. I’m not sure how well this formula works in general. I just don’t know enough couples like this personally. Also, I think in a lot of these couples the man and woman were on the same path at one point, and for whatever reason the man stepped off into a high status but lower paying role. Public service or teaching are probably the best examples.
Sue: “At some point, STEMmies are going to figure out they deserve all the status and grab it.”
Why do you think this? I think the opposite.
As the jobs become more commonplace, the glut means being in engineering is just a step or two over working at Walmart, status-wise. (There are some who say that when women come to dominate a field, the men leave and any status with it, like teachers.)
A few will rise to the top, but there really never will be any sort of large-scale status upgrades, unless the specific job has some other status-generating factor that we about (risk, power, or shitloads o’ money).
Your article may be better titled as “How the acendancy of the female will impact marriage”. And the answer is that it lowers the marriage rate. This harms everyone who benefits from marriage – beta males (who can get more sex in marriage), and all women (who can get more commitment in marriage). It benefits those who are least interested in marriage – alpha males (who can get more sex outside of marriage).
@BB
If I were a male, that’s what I’d do too. That’s an excellent strategy – especially if you live on one income and invest the other.
I doubt most men ever thought that way. My husband sure didn’t. I think the women in the UMC will continue to step off the career track and spend time at home, but I think we’ll also see more part-time work or home-based revenue generation. The number of female entrepreneurs working on a small scale is increasing rapidly. The goal is not VC funding or rapid expansion – these are “mom and pop” businesses without the “pop,” often online.
Yes, that is already happening among 30 somethings, e.g. Kate Bolick, but the model for that will increase as more women enter that cohort of “never marrieds.” When Kate Bolick is 50 and still single, there’ll be a whole new crop now 40 and single.
Yes, for all the talk of extended male adolescence and men not thriving, there are two distinct populations of men. There are those who didn’t make it to college and live in their parents’ basement, but there are the men you describe – they’re thriving either via education or self-starting and making their dreams happen, though not necessarily the same dreams that their fathers and grandfathers had.
@OffTheCuff:
I’m not so sure.
Engineering is a brutally hard field. My freshman class at Virginia Tech started with 4,000. Five years later, we graduated 1,400 engineers. I don’t see a glut – there are too few people who can handle the material.
Other STEM fields might have issues, particularly the entry-level tech jobs.
@Bells
Thank you for sharing that lovely story about your parents! What a great model you grew up with!
@J
I agree with you re the expense of crafts today. Knitting in natural fibers is extremely expensive! I like to needlepoint, and it’s easy to spend a couple of hundred dollars on canvas and threads, and then to find it will cost $250 to have it made into a pillow! It’s the hobby equivalent of “artisanal.” Very expensive.
If beta and omega men increasingly in the USA rejecting are marriage, and choosing to cohabitate with beta females and have bastard (illegitimate) children with her, rather than marry an alpha female and have legitimate children with her, what does that say about the state of marriage in the USA?
The only thing that the marriage rates are showing that there’s a huge decline in legal marriage for the USA. Legal marriage is starting to become something that only upper class liberal people do.
Ceremonies still exist (e.g. wedding ceremonies, parties, etc.) but the only thing that is for sure is that legal marriage has become a catastrophe in the USA since it has become tailored for “egalitarian power couple” dynamics in its core, yet somehow retaining a strange appearance of “tradition”.
Who cares if alpha men (1-10% of the population) don’t like beta women. They are not the ones who are not marrying and having unwed mothers.
America is defaulting towards cohabitation and, to a lesser extent, single motherhood. This entire post don’t analyze general trends.
The general trends are that American men and women are opting out of legal marriage.
@Jeanie
This is perhaps what you would like to see, but certainly in the literature and discussions around female advancement alpha female means high achieving and socially dominant.
At least in this particular study of teenagers, those girls were the ones who socialized with the alpha boys. And those girls are often who the alpha males socialize with in college as well. One thing I wondered was whether this is a pairing of the promiscuous – I strongly suspect that it is.
Sorry, I meant “If beta and omega men are increasingly in the USA rejecting marriage”
@david foster
It sure is! Unfortunately, every female boss I ever had could have written that book. I didn’t have it in me, and they hated me for it. What I found, though, was that some of the most senior males were happy to mentor me. I think they wanted to give positive reinforcement to someone who wasn’t hyper aggressive.
But there is a limited supply of talented techies. Most college students couldn’t hope to hack the engineering or CS programs. I’m not saying that all STEM people will be successful or high status. That requires more than just smarts. But I do think we’ll see a bigger and bigger piece of the status pie going to tech types.
“IOW we blame because we can’t compete”
We don’t blame career women because we can’t compete with their unmatched brilliance.
Sometimes people get the blamed because the current situation in worked in their favor, regardless of their actual talents, other times we blame them because they’re the easiest target.
@Jeanie
Virtually all males get more sex in marriage. The number of unattached men who have sex even once a week is miniscule by comparison. Obviously, single men do get more variety.
Oops, cross posted with Mike M. Cosign.
@Susie
That is true. My blog is specifically aimed at those in college or recently graduated. There are some who wish I would analyze general trends. In truth, there are really two vastly different populations. You can see that in the table that splits education by <12 and >12. Analyzing them as one big group masks what’s really going on, as they behave very differently and make very different choices. I focus on the >12 group almost exclusively, the exception being when the data is not available.
STEM is a type of degree; it is not necessarily a lifetime profession. For example, former GE CEO Jack Welch has both a BS and a PhD in chemical engineering, and actually practiced as an engineer at GE for a couple of years, but he spent the vast bulk of his career managing large organizations. (Of course, some would say that Jack is enough of a jerk to add considerable Alpha…)
Similarly, there are a lot of venture capitalists who got their start with STEM degrees and jobs, but who now spend most of their time evaluating people and financials, rather than doing anything that could be called technical work.
Humans are flexible creatures…or at least should be…and one of the many malign effects of credentials-worship is to cause people to lose sight of that fact.
@Susan: Furthermore, a new college graduate has no idea whether she will be successful in finding a mate – it seems a highly risky strategy to bet on social services to be more marketable to men, only to wind up eeking out a living as a single woman forever.
It is really a bit like asking women to be fried ice.
Me: At the same time, if the prevailing wisdom is for the low status woman to seek alpha men, she had better make sure she has the looks to land men like that and put herself in the right kind of environment to do so. She will also have to put everything into getting men like that amongst the serious competition. All too often what seems to happen is that the low status woman is in an environment where she is primarily among low status men, good looks or not, and assortive mating follows. But the assortive mating there might not look pretty–single motherhood prevails more often than not in that cohort, as Susie was getting at.
@Susan
Out of curiosity 12 years of education is the end of high school-beginning uni split correct?
“Obviously, single men do get more variety.”
And thats why God invented lingerie.
“I think they wanted to give positive reinforcement to someone who wasn’t hyper aggressive.”
Personal anecdote,
Hyperagressive women tend to cause an eye roll and future avoidance. Feminine women tend to encourage that protector/teacher instinct in me.
(This of course assumes they are talented.)
I don’t have the same problem with male students. They can be very, very non-dominant and talented and I still want to guide them. Same with aggressive except they have to be able to accept authority and be able to channel that competitiveness into something productive.
Conclusion: I think if you were to overlay the distributions of aggressiveness for men and women there would be an optimal range which extends from low to high. The tails on each end tend to be unacceptable (too weak or too strong) except women tend to get more of a pass for non-agressive whereas men tend to get more of a pass on aggressiveness (with talent, without its just a headache).
The really unaggressive men (think the guy who you want to yell at in a RomCom to get his ass up and do something) and highly aggressive women tend to be annoyances.
“Then I’d seek a mate like it was my job.”
Not sure if I ever shared this here, but I used to apply for around 35 jobs a day when unemployed with personalized cover letters/ resumes, it would take about 6 hours a day. When I got an interview, I studied all the most common interview questions, memorized important dates off of the company website, found all employers on linkedin or facebook looking for possible affiliations (and in non-profit its easy to see what ones “causes” are), studied what they majored in to see if there was mutual interest, found guides of tough interview questions online, wrote out my responses, and studied my responses so I wouldn’t freeze up when nervous the night before (it’d be about 6 pages of information, I’d memorize each answer). I used my old Kodak camera to answer interview questions and study my body language/responses to mimic a more extroverted person, wrote each and every person who interviewed me a 1 page long thank you letter emphasizing my skills I had in common with them, and what we discussed in the interview to show off my writing abilities, etc.,
What if I put such intense focus into finding a guy during this time? We approach jobs more realistically than relationships, i.e., we don’t rely on the universe to bring a job when the time is right. Wish 22 year old self knew that. grrrr.
@david foster
My personal favourites are STEMs who went into research said fuck it wrt trying to get grants, went into wall street, made a couple billion and then go back into research and can do whatever they want.
Susan…”I think we’ll also see more part-time work or home-based revenue generation. The number of female entrepreneurs working on a small scale is increasing rapidly.”
This makes a lot of sense…there are some obstacles, though. For one thing, excessive government regulation is far more burdensome to a very small business than to a larger one. The ill-thought-out “Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act” has been harmful and even crippling to many small businesses, including home businesses, doing such things as making children’s clothing, books for kids, science kits, etc.
@Ion:
“What if I put such intense focus into finding a guy during this time? We approach jobs more realistically than relationships, i.e., we don’t rely on the universe to bring a job when the time is right. ”
No, this is pretty much how I get jobs and relationships.
At this point, I’m pretty much convinced that the universe is conspiring to help me.
The first job I got, they specifically reopened the summer associate hiring system for me.
I thought that was nice of them.
@MikeM:
“Engineering is a brutally hard field. My freshman class at Virginia Tech started with 4,000. Five years later, we graduated 1,400 engineers. I don’t see a glut – there are too few people who can handle the material.”
Plus, you have people like me who have to major in engineering to keep their scholarships and then go and do something else because they have no actual interest in engineering.
I have a chemical engineering degree that has precisely zero value to me or anyone else, since I never intended to use it.
Susan, that’s what I said. Virtually all men are beta males, and get more sex in marriage, which is why a decline in marriage hurts them. The alpha males are far fewer in number, and they get more sex without marriage. My point stands that the alpha males benefit from the decline of marriage.
In finance, firms go bananas to hire guys with advanced degrees in physics and the like. My husband has actually had challenges managing some of these folks, not all of whom transition to finance very well.
My b-school class of 650 was fully one-third engineering majors. Almost all of the IB types and sexy startup hires came from this cohort. It’s a filter for IQ, at the very least.
@pvw
I think that happens most of the time, unfortunately. Despite the comment above that men choose their wives from girls who ask if you want fries with that, assortative mating does prevail, whether it ends in marriage or not.
@susan
Well, I suppose I can accept that we are using different definitions of what an alpha female means, as long as we’re clear we aren’t speaking the same language. However, considering the nature of genetic imperatives, your definition, as well as that of the literature you speak of, make little sense.
Think about what the “ideal woman” is for a man, and what the “ideal man” is for a woman. Very different. Heck just look at men’s porn vs women’s romance novels or even the whole 50 shades phenomenon.
@Lokland
Yes.
Agreed, because those are the two groups most closely adopting the norms of the opposite gender. We find it repellent. At least I do.
“My b-school class of 650 was fully one-third engineering majors. Almost all of the IB types and sexy startup hires came from this cohort. It’s a filter for IQ, at the very least.”
The GMAT is a proxy for IQ tests.
You can use its results to get into high-IQ societies.
This is the exciting information that I discovered when I was trying to research low IQs for my clients.
That also led me to the discovery of the entire HBD thingy.
@Ion
That’s about the best job search strategy I’ve ever heard!
You’re so right about relationships – this is where women actually put their hope in the “law of attraction.” At least the guys would like to know where the factory making girls is located. They’re willing to take it from there. We tend to want it delivered to our front doorstep. As Mrs. Bennet knew in the early 19th c. women need to put themselves in the path of eligible men.
@david foster
I wasn’t aware of the unfavorable regulatory environment, that stinks. I do recall putting my kids in cotton pajamas, which came in packages saying, “These are not pajamas!”
@Susan:
You’re so right about relationships – this is where women actually put their hope in the “law of attraction.” At least the guys would like to know where the factory making girls is located. They’re willing to take it from there. We tend to want it delivered to our front doorstep. As Mrs. Bennet knew in the early 19th c. women need to put themselves in the path of eligible men.
Me: And there is something else; many young women are led to believe that the job search is a more efficient use of their time, ie., because of frustrations regarding the dating and the SMP, which we have talked about so much here–combat dating, etc.
Susan…CPSIA has been a disaster for many small businesses. I’ve written about it several times…see the posts in this search thread.
I haven’t researched this in a couple of years so there may have been some changes since then making things slightly less painful. A good source on CPSIA, and indeed for anyone interested in starting a small apparel business, is Kathleen Fasanella’s Fashion Incubator blog.
Further thoughts, it seems to me that some of the most conservative parents ie., religious conservatives with parents fulfilling the traditional roles, are raising their daughters to become accomplished alpha girls, ie., the types of young women who will get those college degrees and so forth.
At the same time, they use the language of “intimidation” (just like any feminist) in describing why older accomplished women are unmarried, that men just can’t handle accomplished women.
Here is the thing, I don’t even think this is about “go girl feminism.” They really ascribe to concerns that young women have no guarantees and can’t depend upon anyone but themselves for their future economic well-being.
They really don’t see security for young women in marriage because of divorce. Now, do they think women are to blame for divorce or the men are to blame? It is a good question. Regardless of who is to blame, they want economic protection for their daughters. Some of them would actually urge their daughters to be the high earning alpha wife with the stay-at-home husband.
(continuing on CPSIA)
One of the most disturbing things about the whole CPSIA saga has been the unbelievably arrogant tone of the letter sent by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in response to Kathleen Fasanella’s entirely rational and courteous letter re the damage this misbegotten legislation was doing. Thoughts and links here.
Schakowsky is IMO a horrible person, even by the standards of politicians, but this response does suggest the level of vulnerability that exists for any small business in the current political environment.
@ Jeanie
While I agree with your distinction about what men and women want, I think “alpha” is most useful as a social term rather than a measure of desirability. Thus, “alpha” should describe the archtype of a Type A personality that is socially dominant and aggressive.
No, this is pretty much how I get jobs and relationships.”
JP, women take this to the extreme though, even the most religious of men will at least “meet god half way” by looking for a mate while waiting on gods direction. Young women seem to wait on god/fate/”timing” to drop someone in their lap, which takes them off the market. They will not expect fate to get them into a school without an application, or for God to hand them keys to an apartment without looking, or “timing” to get them a job without interviewing.
“The first job I got, they specifically reopened the summer associate hiring system for me. ”
First off, that’s awesome
, I had a similar situation where college admissions was closed, but I wrote this killer essay and spoke to the advisor several times, and got in. I only applied to one school, and that’s where I went. I think in my case (and yours) some of it was fate/luck whatever you want to call it, but we also got their by qualifying ourselves, and actively seeking out the opportunity. Women need to apply a similar mindset to relationships.
Grr, sorry J. I meant to say homesteading is a movement in NYC, granted it’s successful there because everything is convenient, BUT I still think a homesteading book is a must have.
No need to apologize, but I must admit I’ve never heard of this. Must google.
OK…Where IS this girl factory, anywhere?
Dear Abbott,
I couldn’t find you any multi-penis, but I got you the next best thing:
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/diphallia
Consider this a belated Christamas or early Valentine’s present.
NSFW
Love,
J
My b-school class of 650 was fully one-third engineering majors. Almost all of the IB types and sexy startup hires came from this cohort. It’s a filter for IQ, at the very least.
My older son is planing a business/comp sci or engineering double major.
FWIW, I know of two 25+ year marriages where the wife is an MD and the husband is a househusband. In both cases the woman is greatful to have been given the opportunity to practice medicine AND have a family. I know some two MD families too. The househusband families have nicer kids.
@SW
A friend of mine and I were browsing a yarn shop last weekend. I saws this really great scarf made in merino wool/silk blend yarn priced at $17.50/skein. The scarf needed two skeins. They wanted $6.oo for the instructions. That’s $41.00. No cheaper than buying off the rack, proably more expensive
I went to Michael’s and got a nice washable wool for 7.00 per skein, and think I can make the scarf without the instructions as I’ve been knitting since I was 12. That brings my cost down to $14.oo which is probably the sale price of a nice enough scarf though I’m sacrificing the silk blend yarn.
This is a nice creative outlet, not a money saver.
Same with growing your own food. DH and I once had an organic garden. We had fun, but we also put a lot of money into tools, seeds, peat moss to inprove our soil, etc. Again, not a money saver.
http://www.knittingtree.com/shop/Patternology-Project-Kits/Linton-BobbleEdged-Shawl.htm
I haven’t knitted in a while…most recently some great winter scarves, grat for felting, good quality yarn. The Michaels type yarn, not as good quality–made Afghans.
Double majors are a really good idea. While its not exactly the same, I have two separate bachelors in comp sci and music. It’s a lot of added benefit for not that much extra work or money, since the requirements for one often count as electives to the other.
@pvw
I just took another look. It’s Caron Simpy Soft in harlequin (http://www.caron.com/color_cards/cc_sspaints.html) actually which is acrylic. I was looking for something washable in self striping yarn, and this fits the bill. I would never do an adult sweater in a synthetic though. I have done kid’s stuff in synthetics becuse they take a beating and are quickly outgrown anyway. I used to be fussier until I started knitting for kids.
@OTC
Yeah. He figures that this particular combo will almost guarantee him a job or a platform for starting a business. He will continue to pursue his music as well, with his dream job being the production of electronic music. If none of that works out, he’ll end up an IT project manager. He can’t lose.
Re double majors: the late management consultant Michael Hammer argued that the best preparation for a business career would be an undergraduate double major: one STEM subject and one rigorous humanities program. LINK
I think Dr Hammer’s argument has much merit; however, employers have no good way to distinguish a truly rigorous humanities program from the proliferation of mush that is out there.
@david
I read your link and agree with this: “I think Dr Hammer’s argument has much merit; however, employers have no good way to distinguish a truly rigorous humanities program from the proliferation of mush that is out there.”
@Jeanie
I think “virtually all” is an exaggeration. When the National Marriage Project at UVA researched why men were delaying or avoiding marriage, the number one reason given was that sex is more readily available before marriage than it used to be. The respondents would certainly have been mostly beta males, so they expect more sex than you’re implying.
I do not believe that alpha males get more sex without marriage, as most alphas are STR oriented, moving from fling to fling or ONS to ONS. Even alphas must make considerable effort to secure sex partners: they must approach, face rejection (alphas often report a success rate of 10% or so), and then convince the female to have no-strings sex immediately, something most women are unwilling to do. I believe married betas have more sex than unmarried alphas, assuming those marriages are working.
In short, alpha males cause or exacerbate the decline in marriage, whether others marry generally doesn’t concern them. Betas benefit from the alpha-induced decline, because women who want to marry are generally selecting from a beta pool of men. IOW, a less competitive marriage market for men who wish to marry.
Mom was a seamstress at one point, made all our clothes (me and my bro were the same height for many years, so she just did patterns for both of us, and we split clothes), and saved lots of money being thrifty, not spending on endless supplies of toys, clothes, new appliances and electronics, new couches and furniture over the years, etc., granted, she was creative so she didn’t have to spend money on us, but it was definitely doable to raise us on a very low salary.
I’m impressed. Did she make her own patterns? I’ve seen patterns for kid’s clothes that cost more than clothes off the clearance rack.
@IrishFarmer
“For instance, feminism’s insistence that women are hypoagents, and victims, and need special favors and so on in order to operate on the same level as men can actually stimulate the protector instinct in men and reinforce gender roles, at least from a male perspective, for both men and women.”
Good observation. And the thing is, women’s innate hypergamy and solipsism lead them to their apex fallacy — meaning they only want to operate on the same level as highest status males. It worked for a while, but now we’re starting to see the lower status males going “wtf??!!!”
I have a couple physics degrees, an engineering degree, and a comp. sci. degree. I have to say, engineering and computer science, both pretty easy-peasy. A fair number of hours in computer science, just because coding takes time. I think my GPA in both those disciples is just a shade below 4.0. I know I have one more A- than A+ in the engineering degree, and nothing below that.
Physics, not so capable of getting by on my native wit. I had one third year class where 40 % of the class (all physics majors) failed. Now, that professor got canned a couple years later, but still… I suppose it makes sense to filter hard in physics though, because if you can’t compete on the world stage you’re pretty much a useless tit. With engineering, there’s always value in local knowledge.
I do know some combo physicist/musician types too. There’s something to be said for being a ‘Renaissance Man’ with a classical education. I already am double Susan’s cut-off of twelve years of education, however, and I need every year of my education to do my job. I’ve had a grand total of one elective in all of my degrees. I think I took macro-economics, which was ridiculously stupid and useless. Economists are such a pack of posers.
In my Bachelor’s program, one of the thing the physics professors discussed was how much easier it was when they were in university, because there was so much less to learn. The internet helps with learning things faster, compared to pre-internet, but the amount of information out there keeps growing exponentially.
@pvw
I hear a lot of young women saying this very thing, so it must be coming from their parents. They want very much to be able to support themselves, not knowing what the future may bring. Given the average age at marriage, it makes sense – a woman has to support herself after college for an average of 6 years. She might as well do something lucrative and succeed at it. If she does marry, great, there’s now a hefty double income, no downside. If not, she’ll be OK.
I got a ‘D’ in the 3rd year class, FYI. First and only time. I’d like to say it was humbling, but I was mostly just annoyed with the professor.
@ Susan
Only problem is the rising percentage of ascendant alpha females, which makes the pool of women to marry smaller.
@J
I love that shawl!
I am currently obsessed with this knitwear designer, Lorraine Hearn:
http://www.ravelry.com/designers/lorraine-hearn
I’m also seriously into vintage looks:
http://www.berroco.com/patterns/pattern-booklets/302-vintage-vintage-chunky
None of this interest has translated to an actual project yet…but I dream.
Cute stuff. Hearn is certainly into textures, and the Berocco vintage sweaters are adorable.
@PVW
Re: Housewifely chores
Yes it is true. Initially my mom did a large part of the housewifery duties. I’m not sure if she did this purposefully as a strategy to be “less threatening” to my dad. But I do know that she was also raised in a very traditional household where the women were expected to do all the housework and the men brought home the bread. But over time, managing work and doing the housework became too stressful. Of course I was made to chip in with the chores as a kid but I couldn’t say that I made a huge dent in the chores.
Over time, I think she had a lot of discussions with my dad about housework. He probably initially resisted because he also grew up in a very traditional family. But eventually he complied because he realized that she was too physically tired to do her best in both areas. Now he also does a good share of the work. I even think he enjoys doing it because he’s a neat freak.
@Mr. Nervous Toes
Yeah. Former guitarist for Queen, Brian May is a successful PhD astrophysicist.
I’ve got two degrees in Astronomy myself, one in Comp. Sci., and was in a decent band for about 8 years. Much fun. I did alright with the ladies, considering. But I must admit that it was a little easier when I was in the band.
I gave the example of my parents’ marriage to show that it is possible for a very intelligent woman to be happily married to a man who she outearns. For that to happen, both sides have to be willing to meet the needs of the other’s. My dad desired respect and femininity and my mom gave it to him. My mom primarily desired stability and a compatible partner—and that is what my dad offered.
As for me, if need be, I think I’ll be fine marrying someone who’s not equal to me in education or finance. I do have certain qualities that I desire in a man. But, I also realized that I had to seriously work on my physical appearance and my mentality in order to attract the right men… And that’s why I’m here on HUS.
@J: I just took another look. It’s Caron Simpy Soft in harlequin (http://www.caron.com/color_cards/cc_sspaints.html) actually which is acrylic. I was looking for something washable in self striping yarn, and this fits the bill. I would never do an adult sweater in a synthetic though. I have done kid’s stuff in synthetics becuse they take a beating and are quickly outgrown anyway. I used to be fussier until I started knitting for kids.
Me: I love that harlequin. Funny, it is an acrylic that looks very much like one I used a number of years ago when I was crocheting outfits for some decorative dolls I have in the living room. As for the knitting tree ones, the pink pattern reminds me of something I used for a baby blanket….
@Susan: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/lorraine-hearnLorraine Hern’s stuff looks great–think grandbabies! As the vintage stuff, http://www.berroco.com/patterns/pattern-booklets/302-vintage-vintage-chunky, I know my mom and aunts had some patterns from the 1960s I used to drool over–hot looking crochet/knit dresses…
J and Susan, you’re inspiring me! I just ran to get the knitting basket…
@Bells:
Over time, I think she had a lot of discussions with my dad about housework. He probably initially resisted because he also grew up in a very traditional family. But eventually he complied because he realized that she was too physically tired to do her best in both areas. Now he also does a good share of the work. I even think he enjoys doing it because he’s a neat freak.
Me: That is so key! That they can compromise and undertake whatever roles are necessary to keep the household running and without anyone feeling as though dignity has been compromised. That is the problem with the information Susan presented here; an inability to do what some of our elders found it easier to do?
@PVW
“Here is the thing, I don’t even think this is about “go girl feminism.” They really ascribe to concerns that young women have no guarantees and can’t depend upon anyone but themselves for their future economic well-being.
They really don’t see security for young women in marriage because of divorce…”
That’s exactly the same reason why my parents emphasized the importance of a career. Also, I’m an only child so the need was greatly compounded. If anything ever happened because of economic, death, or divorce issues; I should be able to adequately take care of myself.
@Bells
You sound outright sensible.
That was referring to #144
@J
“Dear Abbott,
I couldn’t find you any multi-penis, but I got you the next best thing:
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/diphallia
Consider this a belated Christamas or early Valentine’s present.”
That link was disgusting. I spent a good 4 minutes trying to figure out how the guy would be to have sex because the penises seem to be located at the same level. So DP is not even possible, lol! Poor guy is probably not getting any.
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