I am reading and listening to Rob Henderson's All The Single Ladies, and Razib Khan interviewing Bryan Caplan about open borders, with starts with a long discussion about feminism, for some reason. (Caplan also writes about IQ, why schools are useless, and selfish reasons to have more children, so he's right up my alley.) So here I am reading about dating apps again. I did a whole series on them and on the extended topic of intrasexual competition in the fall, based on...well, based on lots of things, but I should add in the work of Dr. Tania Reynolds, plus the fact that Son #5 still has to deal with dating apps.
Henderson
The dating market for women is getting tougher. In part, this is because fewer men are attending universities. Why would male enrollment in higher education matter for women? Because women, on average, prefer educated men.
Razib (to Caplan)
So I guess the question some people would make is, why do women have Why do women have to make that sacrifice as opposed to men?
And I'm saying they don't, if you want to look around for a guy that's would rather focus on kids and not on his career. There's plenty guys like out like that out there. There's not many successful women that are interested in those guys. So I mean, you get I would say, this is supply and demand all over again, where, if you, like, if you are a woman who wants that, then the market, it's available. But in fact, there's just not much much of that much demand for it.
I think that's it exactly. Women say that's what they want, but then somehow, they don't. I think Anne Shirley's friend Diana in Anne of Green Gables is close to the mark here Diana hasn’t quite made up her mind though, because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild, dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Yes, the ambitious women want to find an ambitious, challenging, and (gulp) masculine man but reform him into something more tame. In the same way that the elite schools skim off the best students and then start making status and moral rules for the rest of the culture WRT women, race, sexual choice, and personal economics, the most talented elite women skim off the most intelligent and ambitious men who look like they could possibly be at least somewhat tamed, so that they get their masculine one. Then they make rules for the other men and women, who are now, quite frankly, screwed over.
Maria Guttentag, a researcher at Harvard, has an interesting observation, that extends back into history.
“With a surplus of women, sexual freedoms are more advantageous to men than to women. Decreased willingness to commit oneself to an exclusive relationship with one woman is consistent with that fact… It follows further that the persistence of such circumstances would leave many women hurt and angry. Other women, not themselves without a man, would nevertheless often be aware of the unfortunate experiences of their women friends in relations with men. These circumstances should impel women to seek more power, and incidentally, turn them towards meeting their own needs. Most forms of feminism are directed to just such ends.”
"Because women, on average, prefer educated men"....there could be at least three explanations for this:
ReplyDelete--they want men who are thoughtful people and interesting conversationalists, and believe these attributes will be more likely with more education
--the see education as a proxy for (current or future) status/income
--they believe more-educated men are more likely to father highly intelligent and successful children
It's interesting that all the people you cite on this topic are men.
ReplyDeleteAs a woman, I will say that I do have an instant estimate of how violent a man is likely to be. It's instinctive, not anything that I control. A partner with more education is less likely to be violent. (https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/77432/WHO_RHR_12.36_eng.pdf;sequence=1)
Quotes: Some of the most consistent factors associated with a man’s increased likelihood of committing violence against his partner(s) are (2,9):
low level of education
(...)
And:
Factors associated with the risk of both victimization of women and perpetration by men include (2,9):
(...)
disparity in educational attainment, i.e. where a woman has a higher level of education than her male partner (3,12).
Note that this is the World Health Organization, not a US-based organization. It is a good collection on intimate partner violence across countries. There is likely something innate to the human condition that leads to these patterns, rather than anything unique to contemporary Westerners.
I take exception to your statement that "the most talented elite women skim off the most intelligent and ambitious men who look like they could possibly be at least somewhat tamed, so that they get their masculine one."
ReplyDeleteThis is a gross oversimplification. I know of a number of elite women who have chosen to marry tradesmen or men who do not earn as much as they do. And other high earning women who did not get married. In the modern world, talented, elite people are working very long hours. If both partners keep the same schedule, there's time to date, let alone take care of a shared dog or child.
As to dating apps, I am skeptical that they work for everyone. I say this because a young friend showed me the matches she was offered. Some of them were, no joke, wannabe gangsters. I presume the algorithms are proprietary secrets, so there's no way to compare matches offered to the college educated rather than people with a high school diploma.
My primary source for the series and also mentioned here, is Dr. Tania Reynolds, who is not a man.
ReplyDeleteAs to skimming, I was speaking at the level of dating apps, and that was not entirely clear. I think it is somewhat true in regular space as well, and was so as far back as the 70s when I was in college. But it does not apply as a general rule, you are correct.
I was intrigued to see that a major venture capital firm published (on their website) an essay about the online dating market and its dissatisfactions, and invited entrepreneurs working in that space to contact them.
ReplyDelete@ Cranberry - also Maria Guttentag. Your point is solid and I am defending the defending at the edges to nail those down. Your more substantive central point is a very intersting discussion. The females in question were not only my own dating cohort fifty years ago, but a great many of my female coworker freinds over the years: psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, occupational and rec therapists. I feel some loyalty to them and many? most? do not fit my dismissal.
ReplyDeleteBut plenty of them did fit, and never saw it, and there was no reason to point it out to them. There are women who marry high-resource men and then spend their careers making sure "lesser" men toe the line, while also making coded comments about their attractiveness behind their backs. Am I overreacting because some of those males were very decent men who were my friends? Probably. I also would feel some shame for have come into those women's circles of trust far enough that they would say such things in front of me - a mixed masculinity message if there ever was one. Guilty as charged.
Still, the situations were real, and I think I don't hold grudges because I don't think of these things for most of the year... but I probably do because it re-emerges whenever the topic comes up. They hated and complained about the difficult, somewhat over-masculine males in their field and departments - and then would play up to them. I am not talking about violent men (AFAIK) here, but still somewhat stereotypical. Is it a mark of patriarchy that those men are still so successful? Maybe. Probably. But who is propping them up? Ambitious females, often declaratively feminist. The ambitious people, male and female, know how to play the game both ways. It is the way of the world. But i don't have to buy into their complaints
It's always interesting to hear what other people notice about each other. I don't know your coworkers, of course, so the context is difficult to follow from the outside. It sounds as if the majority would be deemed "educated" in this conversation, though.
ReplyDeleteDating app users are a subset of single people. I don't think one can generalize freely to "what women want," or "what men want." When choosing to meet total strangers, you may aim for the biggest payoff, given the risks involved. And note that complaints abound online about people lying on the apps about age, weight, height, relationship status, etc.
Many years ago, I remember my mother and grandmother being shocked about The Dating Game show, saying, "but those girls know nothing about the men!" And at least one contestant was a serial killer: https://allthatsinteresting.com/rodney-alcala-dating-game-killer. He was chosen, but the female contestant chose not to go on a date with him, because she thought he was creepy.
I think looking at an individual as if they have total control over their environment and their decisions avoids the larger picture. Much has been made over the fact we have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors. However, in much of history, women were not choosing their husbands. Their families were. And even today, "meeting the family" is a momentous and scary occasion.
I know in my own extended family, I have noticed relationships drift apart when parents and siblings had doubts about a boyfriend or girlfriend. I'm not sure anything was said directly. Looking at people using dating apps or college students cannot capture the effect of family influence.
I'm not as worried about the panic over more women receiving college degrees, and thus not being able to find a husband. I suspect education and socioeconomic status are closely correlated, so smart women with protective families have always found it difficult to find a suitable husband.