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career-oriented, college, feminism, higher education, hook up culture, hook ups, men and women, university, women
The reality of the world is that, for every benefit, there is a cost. If for some benefit x it has the cost y, someone saying “You should do x more” is saying “You should do y less.” As such, when we have society telling young women “You should pursue a career” society is telling them “You shouldn’t pursue marriage.” Quite simply, time spent by a woman on one of these pursuits is time that can’t be spent on other pursuits.
Hence campus hookup culture (h/t Lion). Even if women aren’t pursuing marriage, they still love to get validation from guys, which at their point in life can be gotten rather easily. The preference for flings over serious relationships is motivated by a simple tradeoff analysis; the woman can either have a relationship, or she can get ahead on her career. There’s no way she can do both. How else do you explain the drop off in the prominence of relationships at university?
Elizabeth A. Armstrong, a sociologist at the University of Michigan who studies young women’s sexuality, said that women at elite universities were choosing hookups because they saw relationships as too demanding and potentially too distracting from their goals.
Indeed, my own experience with girls in college is that, when pressed on the point, they will give up their relationships in order to pursue their careers. I’ve personally seen it happen. While they may desire a family and children, women believe
‘I need to take this time for myself — I’m going to have plenty of time to focus on my husband and kids later.’
In other words, she needs to be a “Strong, independent, self-made, career-oriented woman.” And notice how that’s antithetical to having a personally fulfilling, romantic relationship? Let us count the tactical mistakes going on here, long term:
1) Women are, in their early 20’s, at their highest sexual mating value. If she isn’t leveraging that to get herself the highest value man she can, later on she will only be able to get a lower value man than she’s used to hooking up with.
2) Every hook up makes a woman less attractive. Good or bad, no man is thinking “Yes, I’ve found a woman who’s already banged 3 dozen men! Prime marriage material!” I know it’s a severe turn off (marriage-wise) for me.
3) Every hook up increases a woman’s appraisal of self-value, which she will think is a good indicator of what kind of guy she’ll be able to marry in her post-Wall 30’s. Then she’ll have lost her early 20’s high SMV and wonder where have the good men have gone (note: women don’t think to look at themselves in answering this, but blame men; hamster rationalizing at it’s best).
4) Eventually a woman must either choose to be married to her career or a man. She cannot really do both, because unless one of the partner’s life priorities is in line with the other’s career priorities, the marriage will always be depend on the contingency of both partners having careers that overlap enough for the marriage to work. Not impossible, but unlikely, especially the more ambitious either’s career path. And, if the man sacrifices his career to hers, she won’t respect or love him. If she gives up her career for her marriage, then she was really only wasting all that time “finding herself” at college and career.
Given this is the life path more and more women are choosing, is it any wonder that marriage has no future? Women are increasingly unmarriageable, unattractive, and unfeminine. Marriage can realistically be oriented around only one career, and the more women dedicate themselves to their career, the less will there be marriage. The four tactical mistakes I’ve outlined above aren’t even the entirety of the problem; there’s a huge waste of resources and time, the family as a social institution is weakened, these problems will be “solved” by the state, on and on. Those are just the problems from the woman’s perspective.
I’m happy to see noted in the article what I’ve argued elsewhere, that gender ratios which favor women foster higher rates of promiscuity.
Nationally, women now outnumber men in college enrollment by 4 to 3 and outperform them in graduation rates and advanced degrees. Some researchers have argued that the gender imbalance fosters a culture of hooking up because men, as the minority, hold more power in the sexual marketplace, and they prefer casual sex to long-term relationships.
It’s for reasons like this that I’ve given up serious relationships at this point in life. The chances of meeting a girl who is actually good marriage material are frighteningly slim. You could say I’m looking in the wrong place for marriageable women, and that’s true, because I’m looking in the modern West.
I agree the hookup culture is awful, but not for the socio-economic reasons you’ve listed here, rather because of sin. I consider the issues you raise as also important, but secondary to the theological picture.
On not finding Mr. Perfect, I saw a book a couple years ago titled something like “Finding Mr. Good Enough” – a woman author’s perspective on women giving up the quest of finding Mr. Perfect.
I wonder what your thoughts are on this given your capitalistic libertarian leanings. If women prove themselves as fit as (or perhaps superior to) men in some working settings/careers, then isn’t that good for the market?
I also wonder about the consequences of discouraging women from education and career… wouldn’t this lead to the potential of men walking away from their wives/families and leaving a woman who has no marketable skills of her own to sustain herself (and any children)?
I also wonder – is this the “end of marriage” or rather “the end of the traditional family?” And here’s why… as I approach 40, I still have many friends who are married with no children and never plan to have children. They say they have a high level of marital satisfaction and both work full time. Because they can devote relational energy to each other in their off-time (and not children), they feel satisfied in their marriages. So does 2 incomes really mean no marriage, or more so no children?
Lots of wonderings…
The point is ridiculously simple, Josh..
Should a woman wants to have children, then she [sooner or later] must choose marriage. If a man wants to have a family, then he should choose a less career woman. Because healthy children could only come from a complete functional family.
Alas, only women have true mammary glands, natural wombs & built-in nurturing instinct. If she was raised or raises herself decently, that is.
If every wedding party IS a marriage, and if by only having regular sterilized sex with a sole chummy partner IS a marriage; then Las Vegas should be your god, and a long-term-prostitute should be your perfect “soulmate”.
No need to mention sin nor theological picture when with such skin-deep level of understandings. You are trying to install a secular definition of marriage, into a natural (real) slot. Not gonna happen..
One banal & unnecessary contemplation you’re having there. No need to wondering any further. You’ve been away for too long, Joshie.
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