Over on our ‘contact us’ page a reader by the name of TrailTyme asked us for our take on this Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Richard Whitmire. There are hints and guesses as to the reason educated women have a hard time finding a mate. After reading through it once, I’d have to say that it seems to be a fairly decent article with some juicy nuggets.
In recent months the spike in college-educated women deciding to have a husbandless family has become a magazine staple. The New York Times Sunday Magazine devoted a cover story to the issue. There’s been a 145% rise in unmarried births among college-educated women since 1980, more than twice the increase in such births among women without college educations. That’s just births; adoptions are another outlet for women seeking families on their own. But there’s a largely unexplored part to this story: Why is this happening?
The simple enough answer is that these women spent their most marketable years getting an education. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but there are trade offs. The obvious being that the pool of men that are 1) of at least an equal level of education, and 2) masculine enough to, for want of a better term, generate a ‘gina tingle’ are extremely small. To make matters worse by the time these women get around to looking for a man to settle down with, many of the ones they would be attracted to are already taken. Vox Day (see the blogroll) wrote up a good explanation of this using game theory which I wish I could find.
UPDATE: here’s the Vox Day link (H/T to RP in TX)
There’s no single answer to the “why” question, but social scientists agree that the education mismatch Ms. Downtain experiences with men is a significant player behind the increase in college-educated women choosing single motherhood.
The article talks about how Miss Downtain has found many Mr. Almost-rights, and how they often are uncomfortable with her salary and education. Women have told me time and again how their education, intelligence, and drive should make them attractive to men. I’ve pointed out to them that is what they find attractive in men. Just because women find that attractive doesn’t mean men do. That stuff is far, far down the list for most men. Women like Miss Downtain, in my experience, tend to be hyper-competitive. It is a necessary part of any person’s personality if they want to rise above being cannon-fodder or middle management. Men would prefer to have support at home, not competition, they get enough of that in their daily lives. No man I know wants to compete with his LTR.
This mismatch signals the emergence of a phenomenon studied more commonly in the animal kingdom than in the human one—the “operational sex ratio,” the scientific term describing what happens when one sex outnumbers the other. In human populations, gender balances can tilt following world wars or times of migration (think California Gold Rush), resulting in a shortage of men or women of marriageable age.
Hmm, one of the Universities I attended had only been integrated for a short period of time. The men still out numbered the women 2 to 1. Women who were 2s and 3s were able to easily snag guys who where 5s and 6s. Women who were 5s and 6s were treated like 10s. That’s what a messed up sex ratio will do.
A more worrisome issue arises when men take advantage of their relative scarcity by making life miserable for would-be girlfriends. Why settle down when you are a guy and the supply of eligible women appears to be unlimited? The female students hate such a situation, which is one reason admissions offices end up accepting male applicants who are less academically qualified than their female counterparts. Their goal is to avoid the dreaded 60/40 gender imbalance on campus that everyone agrees is a threshold not to be crossed. Those gender preferences, which colleges rarely discuss, have become common among private, four-year colleges (and recently caught the attention of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which has launched a probe into admissions discrimination against women).
One has to ask. How is it discrimination against women when up to 60% of the students are women? Nevermind, it was a rhetorical question. The first part about men being unwilling to settle down is a no brainer. Add in the hook up culture, rampant misandry and a man would have to have rocks in his head to not take advantage of the sexual dystopia. I’m sure they are miserable would-be girlfriends, but we must reap what we sow.
