Aliasclio, that post of yours is a goldmine of female psychological baggage.

those now in their later 30s and 40s, were made to feel ashamed of themselves for being too eager to get married, by men, or for not wanting a Career with a capital C, by other, older women, including their own mothers.

You mean they weren't doing what they wanted to do? But I thought that they were liberated, free from male tyrannical oppression, wasn't that the aim of the whole project?

so how could we be stupid enough not to plan for our futures by getting a good education, etc

You are stupid if you don't plan for unforeseen events, educating women was not a mistake, with the exception of course,of educating them with regard feminist ideology. Smart women are attractive women. Furthermore there are arsehole men who will dump you, you're better off having an independent income. If I had daughters I would definitely insist on them having an education. If you could strip the feminist ideology out of the curriculum you get charming, articulate, independent and classy women. What more could a father wish for?

As for deceiving men about our real wishes: in my 20s, I saw that many of my friends pretended not to want marriage and children when it was clear to me that they did.

This is why female psychology is just delicious. Doing one thing, wanting another. Good Lord.

Other women mocked them for being old-fashioned and naive, while men laughed at them for being after an "MRS" degree - an old joke that reveals that this fear of marriage-hungry women is not new.

WTF is wrong with wanting to get married or appearing so? The wife unit most impressed me when three months into the relationship she sat me down and said "where are we going from here, is this serious? Because I'm not wasting my time if it is not"...She always had the attitude that she would rather be alone than married to a non-committal dickhead or some other looser. She did not want a proposal but indication that she was not some sort of plaything. More importantly she was quite prepared to break off the relationship if she wasn't happy, not live in some forlorn hope: She wanted to get married, have kids, picket fence etc, and was not going to stick around with someone who would not provide it.Alpha woman, Impressive! Not emotionally needy.

Men may never have cared much about women's careers - although some did, esp. then - but they've never liked being pursued by women

Guess what? Men don't care about each others careers either. Not liked being pursued by women? You and I obviously don't live on the same planet. Nothing is an ego boost like being chased by a women you like. It's the best. Its a bummer though when you are married; you can't act on it.

Often their boyfriends were surprised to find themselves proposing...It takes a determined and undaunted, and wily, woman to pull this off.

The promise of nice company, regular sex, genuine friendship and similar outlook pretty much ensure that the man will marry you, female wiles have nothing to do with it; though women like to think that. What about that old female manipulative trope that if I get pregnant he will marry me, uhm......hasn't worked that well recently. Here's some advice, if you want to get married then find a man who wants to get married. How to tell, look for the obvious, has a job, doesn't drink to much, keeps his promises, looks after his parents etc. A man who possess prudential virtues. Use your head, not just your heart. Don't seek perfection; optimise.

In general, the women who want marriage but don't get it tend to be those who aren't wily enough

No Clio its not about manipulation. A lot of the women who don't get married choose bad men; repeatedly. The artful dodger is another name for a charming liar. Furthermore, in a general case, why buy the cow when the milk is for free.

What I get from your post was that the militant feminist movement was accepted by women against their desires out fear of being shamed by other women. Where was the liberation? Casting off the bonds of patriarchy only to be enslaved by the shackle of matriarchy. Now there's social progress!

Slumlords Rule No 2 of female psychology:

Reputation. All actions are done with a view of female reputation in mind. Female behaviour is determined by social approval. It's not what I want to do its what my peer superiors expect me to do. The skill in this situation is maintaining your reputation while doing what you want, that is scope of feminine wiles. Preaching militant feminism while living in a picket fenced Colonial married to a merchant banker is its illustration. Here's another one. Lot's of women hate breastfeeding and would prefer to bottle feed, they do it out of shame of being thought by other women of being a bad mother. Shame is a powerful negative motivator of female behaviour, more powerful than logic.

It's still a Victorian world people.

Posted by: slumlord on April 7, 2009 8:55 PM

Yes, Clio, I have to say one of the best things about coming up during the late 90s was the softening of expectations to "do it all." Whew!

My mom tells a few stories that make my hair stand on end; she got married in '79, had her kids in the early 80s.

but yeah, you gotta be wily as a fox! "Finding love while pretending to do something else!" is it exactly.

It's more convincingly played if you don't even entirely know your own wiles. ;) Overthinking it is paralyzing.

I don't blame the men, either; it's confusing for everybody out there.

But I also don't think they honestly have NO IDEA that their girlfriends will eventually want to make family men out of them; but maybe things are different in the big cities.

But really, all they have to do is take a quick look at the guys five and ten years older than themselves. Most of those dudes are family men. Do they really not see the writing on the wall?

Anyway, JV is right, too. For most people, it all seems to work itself out in the end. You just have to struggle through a difficult transitional period first.

Posted by: omw on April 7, 2009 9:15 PM

Most of the women I know started having kids in their 30s, and everyone seems to be doing just fine.

JV, the stats simply don't back you up. I believe you that the women you know have had children, seemingly, without any problems, but...

every survey/study I have ever seen says that fertility goes down, birth "problems" go up and the childs health is more likely to be less than stellar.

Also, the point that I was trying to make is that for many young men, I think that they are NOT confused. "yo, man, look, chicks don't want to get tied down any more than you do, so, you know, don't worry about it...just have fun"

But, apparently, more than a few girls wouldn't mind getting tied down before they are 30.

Posted by: Usually Lurking on April 7, 2009 9:56 PM

But I also don't think they honestly have NO IDEA that their girlfriends will eventually want to make family men out of them; but maybe things are different in the big cities.

A 27 year old guy may figure it out after, say, a year of "hanging out" (i.e. dating). But he will probably not be thrilled with the idea. However, he is also not likely to be thrilled with the idea of dieing alone and, so far, she is the best that he could do, so he gets married.

But really, all they have to do is take a quick look at the guys five and ten years older than themselves. Most of those dudes are family men. Do they really not see the writing on the wall?

By that logic, most of the boys growing up in Iowa would become farmers, yet, most of them, nowadays, find other work instead. Also, I can't speak for Clio's generation, but nowadays, you hear it from every older guy you know, "Don't get married". Seriously. Not all of them say it clearly and out loud, but it is almost always there. So, yeah, you may see guys 5 and 10 years older being married, but that doesn't mean that you want to. All the more reason to hang out with girls who say that they don't want to get married.

Posted by: Usually Lurking on April 8, 2009 9:22 AM

Men aren't confused, and we never have been. We know perfectly well that underneath all the screeching and hollering about women not needing men or wanting children that women need men and want children. Remember the days when women, daytime talk shows, pop psychology, were all going on about men's "fear of commitment"? "Commitment" was the code word for marriage and children, and our "fear" was simply lack of desire to get married and have kids. That men were browbeaten enough to not be able to say this out loud changes nothing.

Men have always known what we wanted. None of that has changed. No matter how much we've been harridanized into silence, in the privacy of our own minds, NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

Agitprop: Older women are more attractive.

Men's response: No. Younger women are more attractive.

Agitprop: Women don't need men.

Men's response: Yes they do. That's why they're constantly going on about "commitment".

Agitprop: Pornography objectifies women and leads to rape.

Men's response: Man, look at the hooters on that babe!

Etc.

The Silence Of Men is one of the most notable phenomena of the last thirty years of men (and women). We haven't said so, because women simply can't tolerate much reality, but we have ALWAYS KNOWN WHAT WE WANT. And we've NEVER BEEN SORRY FOR IT.

As I said earlier, Eppur si muove.

Posted by: PatrickH on April 8, 2009 10:23 AM

"Also, I can't speak for Clio's generation, but nowadays, you hear it from every older guy you know, "Don't get married"."

I give similar advice, but it's, "Don't get married until your 30s. Sort all your crap out, travel the world, pretend to be a musician, start then don't finish that novel, do it all in your 20s, because if you don't, you will regret it."

Marriage and kids is a funny thing in that it's something women seem to know they want and men seem to put off for as long as possible, but once we're in it, it's both the most rewarding and the most frustrating thing you can imagine. Sometimes I fucking hate it and sometimes I love it, and usually those emotions happen multiple times a day. And kids? Forget about it. The best thing in the world.

Anyway, from where I stand as a 40 year old husband and father, all this sturm und drang sounds incredibly age-appropriate if you're 25. At 35, it's pathetic.

Posted by: JV on April 8, 2009 11:36 AM

At 35, it's pathetic.

It is pathetic if you are incapable or uninterested in any kind of long-term loving relationship at 35. Not so much if you are honestly unhappy with how our Federal gov't deals with that contract known as Marriage.

Also, I don't know any guy that regrets having children, just getting married. Yeah, yeah, I know, not one without the other, but still.

I am guessing that this can all be summed up with:
"Girls marry Guys hoping that they will change. Guys marry Girls hoping that they won't."

Posted by: Usually Lurking on April 8, 2009 12:04 PM

Ah, boys, life is a series of compromises for most of us; surely we'd all love to be eternally youthful and physically perfect and have high-status careers and live forever flitting from one thrilling romance to the next... but this is not the way life works, right? We get older, face our mortality, begin to think of our legacies, whatever they may be.

Shrug. Surely it's true that young men are less ready to settle down than their same-aged female peers; the just-so evo-psych stories behind this make sense to me, but this is also nothing new, and I think the best way for a young woman to circumvent this annoying stage is to marry a man who's already gotten past it.

For better or for worse, wedding rings aren't nearly so tied to the pursuit of plain sex, and surely one suspects that this has worked out better for butterfly-sipping men than for marriage-hungry women, by and large.

I can't see what there is to complain about, here, for confirmed bachelor types.

All women have to bring to the marriage table now is... personality and reproductive potential, which everyone knows is virtually irrelevant to pleasure in life.

And still, the men propose, and still, new families are created.

So, you know, maybe there is something more at play here than the shopworn feminist bogeybitch.

I'm with you, though.

If you know what you want, and it ain't marriage, then don't do it!

Posted by: omw on April 8, 2009 12:09 PM

Anyway, women have been having kids in their thirties since the dawn of time. Yes, the risk goes up, but your odds are still quite good, individually speaking.

Mind you, the old-timers started at 22 and didn't quit till they were 40, but the potential is still DEFINITELY there.

Agreed that it's quite a bit riskier to stake your whole reproductive future on your later-30s fertility, though. (If having children is extremely important to a woman, it's a risk I wouldn't recommend taking.)

But even then, it works out more often than it doesn't.

As Manolo the Shoeblogger notes, the older folks "have learned the secret hidden from the young; that life can be good, even when it is not perfect."

;)

Posted by: omw on April 8, 2009 12:36 PM

Surely it's true that young men are less ready to settle down than their same-aged female peers

omw, I am not talking about one sex being less ready than another. I am saying that the guys (today) are never given the message that their girl wants to get married at all. He is told by her and all the other girls that they do not want to get married and have children. This, combined with the not so subtle message from older men that marriage is basically a prison-sentence and none of this is countered by anything as far as I can tell.

And still, the men propose, and still, new families are created.

Sort of. The age of marriage (esp. for educated white Americans) has been getting older and older for decades. And, AFAIK, it is not reversing or even slowing down. Also, not only are the married couples getting married later, fewer of them are getting married in the first place. Again, a trend that is not reversing or slowing down.

But even then, it works out more often than it doesn't.

Yes, the older woman is still more likely to get pregnant than not. But that still does not address the fact that her children, if she succeeds, are much more likely to have all sorts of problems. I am not demonizing anyone here, my mother had me in her mid 30s.

I am simply making two basic statements here:
1.) Giving young men the message that young women do not want to get married and have children is not a good thing. Instead, giving them the message, from either girls, mothers, popular culture or, ideally, all of the above, would be a much better way to go if we are looking for young men to become good husbands and fathers.
2.) Waiting till your 30's to have kids is a really bad idea for most girls.

And those two points work together, for better or worse.

Posted by: Usually Lurking on April 8, 2009 1:51 PM

UL: Also, not only are the married couples getting married later, fewer of them are getting married in the first place.

Not sure about this. From 1960 to 1990, the percentage of "never married" rose from 22% to 27% percent, and according to the census the percentage of never marrieds (among the white pop)in 2008 was 27%. This seems to accord with my sense that the various sexual/marriage revolutions that got started in say 1960, revved up into mass phenomena in the 70s and then completed their growth in the 80s, with something like stability at these new levels being achieved in the 90s.

Which means the wrenching changes of pill, porn, feminism, women working, divorce, etc. seem to have worked their way through the system. Interestingly, I see very little evidence of a return to "traditional" (immediate post-war) sexual and marriage norms. My own gut feeling is that we're in for the long haul with our current arrangements.

Which is fine by me. Gives us a chance to catch our breath. Work out some systems of manners, quasi-ethical behavioural norms that can go a long way when the majority subscribes to them toward smoothing relations between the sexes. The disintegration of courtesy has produced much of hostility between men and women in the last few decades, IMO, and settling into our new way of sexual and romantic life should help us develop (and enforce) new norms that fit our not-so-brave-but-probably-here-to-stay new world.

Posted by: PatrickH on April 8, 2009 3:18 PM

UL, I think maybe young men should be given the message that young women may say they don't want marriage/kids, and that may be the case for them at the time, but they will eventually want it big time. I'm pretty sure most guys know that anyway and pretend to believe their girl doesn't because hey, they're having fun.

And for young women, they should be told that most young men are not going to want anything to do with marriage/kids. In fact, I think young women are told that which is why they don't blurt out their desire for married life right off the bat.

Mainly, young people lack life experience. They believe that the attitudes they have at the moment are the ones they'll have forever, and when they first experience a change in either their own or a significant other's attitude, it comes as quite a shock. But guess what? The reasonable ones get over it, and future changes are anticipated and accepted. This is why I believe all this posturing and whining, and I'm including Game here, is pathetic after a certain age. Life is change. Accept it or be eternally frustrated.

Posted by: JV on April 8, 2009 9:00 PM

Patrick, I was trying to sum up all the parts. 22% to 27% is not huge. However, and i don't have the stats in front of me, the 22-27 range is still much higher than it was before a huge number of young men were killed in war. That is, the rate of marriage was much "better" from, say, 1880 - 1914 before we started getting all crazy in the 20th century with wars and depressions.

But, either way, the age of first marriage went up and is still going up and fewer people are getting married.

Posted by: Usually Lurking on April 9, 2009 9:18 AM

I think maybe young men should be given the message that young women may say they don't want marriage/kids, and that may be the case for them at the time, but they will eventually want it big time. I'm pretty sure most guys know that anyway and pretend to believe their girl doesn't because hey, they're having fun.

Personally, that would be fine by me. but, I don't know how many teachers or After-School specials will send the message that girls say one thing, but actually mean another.

I'm pretty sure most guys know that anyway and pretend to believe their girl doesn't because hey, they're having fun.

There is a big difference between knowing something and, ultimately, figuring something out late in the game. And I think that the consequences are different too.

Take some young guy who was simply living his life honestly and freely and was "dating" some girl (i.e. hanging out) only to find out that this was tantamount to him "stringing her along" and that he should settle down already. Contrast that with some guy who grew up knowing, and all of his friends knew, that marriage was expected of him.

Well, if he, and everyone else, knew that it was expected of him that he get married someday (or, at least, not string some girl along), then, he might expect some things from that marriage. Especially since he was aware that girls wanted to get married a whole lot more than guys do. Supply and Demand.

Posted by: Usually Lurking on April 9, 2009 9:28 AM

Hello--

For my generation the women seem confident that they can be wives/mothers/professionals but troubled by the laissez faire sexual marketplace. Due to the global economy and high rates of divorce a lot of dudes feel uneasy about the breadwinner and protector and I know you are aware of the alpha/beta divide.

I agree about the generational differences.

I think you are greatly downplaying the unease and unhappiness of the majority of gen Y men (betas) with the sexual marketplace; and the 50/50 chances of divorce. They are well aware that alpha males (roughly the top 15% in sexual attractiveness to women) are enjoying a cornecopia of sexual riches that maybe the most attractive top 30% of women also enjoy. Meanwhile in the big coastal cities they find it hard to find attractive girls interested in marrying until they're pushing or over thirty, AFTER they chased skads of alphas in their party, party, party 20's, but failed to nap one willing to commit, to their great disappointment. The prospects of true pair bonding to the higher beta they settle for go way down. They're maybe almost nonexistent in many cases. Though sure a loving partnership of sorts can exist. But is often unstable after awhile.

Bear in mind that many higher betas are highly successful with good or great incomes as lawyers, doctors, even some investment bankers, middle level corporate execs., engineers, and so on.

As well there's a big and really very simple reason why men are SO much more wary of marriage and scared about the prospects of divorce than women are. For starters women initiate 70% of divorce and probably are behind pushing for it or doing little to prevent it quite a lot more often than that. But beyond that it's men that are so raped by post early 90's feminist divorce law "reform". Just raped. However this is almost the most taboo subject in American media and entertainment media (which is what matters for these sorts of things). Nonetheless this reality has started seeping out fairly big time now. Guys see the divorce raping some of their friends are taking, often for no great sin on the man's part. Just dissatisfaction on hers. Or her affairs. For which he as to pay her huge.

No wonder women initiate so high a percentage of divorces these days. They reliably make out so well, regardless of what they themselves have done or haven't done.

Posted by: dougjnn on April 10, 2009 11:56 AM

Doug, you know what so-called "alphas" don't spend any time thinking about? The whole alphas and betas thing. Christ, man, get out of that binary mindset and go enjoy yourself. Find a woman you click with. Don't worry about what others are doing. Seriously.

I agree with you on divorce law, though. Heavily weighted in women's favor. Although the initial reasons for that were valid, it's gone way overboard.

Posted by: JV on April 10, 2009 2:08 PM






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