Again, we do not find any of this surprising. Overachieving women are having trouble finding suitable mates. The latest research tells us that they are now refusing to marry down, as the saying goes. They are refusing to settle for underachieving men.
It makes some sense. Women prefer to marry up and men prefer to marry down. And yet, why do the researchers imagine that underachieving men want to marry overachieving women? Could it be that overachieving women have written themselves out of the marriage market? Perhaps they say that they refuse to settle because they want to save face.
Experts are at the ready to explain it all away. They insist that the era of the male breadwinner is over and that we ought all to get used to it. And yet, if overachieving women cannot find suitable mates, then perhaps it isn’t all over, just yet. And if underachieving men do not want to marry overachieving women, we can count that as yet more evidence that it’s not over yet.
Obviously, our society has engineered this outcome. In the first place, we have, as a culture, decided to enhance educational opportunities for girls. We have skewed the educational system to privilege girls, at the expense of boys. The theory was that elevating girls would elevate all the non-girls, too, but, in fact, as girls have been elevated by a school system that routinely disparages boys' interests and talents, boys have suffered.
Their feminist overladies promised young girls that once they achieved great things careerwise, they would not longer need to depend on a man for anything. They, they would be loved for themselves alone and would have deeply meaningful personal relationships with loving husbands. These loving husbands would happily share housework and diaper duty.
It was all a lie. Thanks to this social engineering and gender neutering we have a new cohort of overachieving women who cannot find suitable mates. They say that they are refusing to settle, but that assumes that men are beating a path to their doorways. Such is almost surely not the case. Unless you count hookups.
I think it might be their definition of "achieving." They are operating from a model of college and graduate degrees as best signifiers of success. That is less true every year, especially if one is factoring in the amount of debt. Comparing an electrical contractor with a solid reputation and prospering to an advanced-degree Arts and Humanities student who already has $100K in debt, which one is the "achiever?" Or even better, look at a half-dozen different definitions of "success" and see which wins under each type? Making something useful for others, for example is one possible definition.
ReplyDeleteAs degrees are still required ticket punches in many fields, the change in attitudes will come slowly. Women have been sold a bill of goods.
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ReplyDeleteOverachieving women? The ones that are always right that don't listen? I knew a woman like that. Career woman! Single mom of four children - two different men.
ReplyDeleteFirst husband, ended up in jail for more than one year. Serious charges. Second husband - very dramatic suicide. The hookup culture she decided to dabble in, invited one attempted rape. I just got tired of being around a career woman who was always right - making all the wrong decisions. I knew her for twenty six years. I don't talk to her anymore. I will say cons will seek these overachieving women out and it won’t end well.
There was a Black guy who used to blog and comment at blogs, who remarked that in his experience few Black women with college degrees would date or marry guys who lacked such degrees, even when the degree was total mush and the man in question was very successful at a trade.
ReplyDeleteHe also said something along the lines of: "White guys--if you haven't seen this phenomenon yet with white women, you will"
As the number of degree holder gets larger and the number of qualified tradesmen gets smaller I suspect that we are going to see a switch, if not down right reversal, in the definition of achievement. There is a shortfall of 200,000 plus HVAC people. You have people who have not finished their training already making $22.00 an hour. Now extrapolate that to the trades field and one can see where the demand for services will come.
ReplyDeleteAll of this is built on a specious idea of what achievement actually means. I have earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees so I understand the desire to see degree attainment as the epitome of achievement. We are fast reaching a point where everyone has a degree and no one has a degree worth the paper it is printed on. Computer programmers anyone? Be careful treating people as deplorable or beneath you because you are going to meet them on the way down.
Women have drunk the "happy juice" of higher education and college degrees and "progressive ideas", and that juice has become acidic. Or so it seems. Mostly, I think, due to the progressive ideas. And as I've said before, the word "progressive" always reminds me of cancer.
ReplyDeleteOh, what I could say about this. . . but I'd be giving my identity away and I don't need to be doxed.
ReplyDeleteDavid Foster - I think I read his blog and comments a few times. Thinking he used the handle 'Obsidian'.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, the Left is at war with human nature. They make war on others for the things they cannot be with in themselves. Leftism is all about "I should have whatever I want, and you should make it possible." Add the modern version of "You should pay for it or you're a bigot." It is based on anger and rage, creating impossible desires to justify a lugubrious lifestyle. They cannot be satisfied. I've given up trying. You cannot achieve if you're a victim. It's either impossible... or never enough.
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