Poll: Age for Dating and Marriage

[Ken]

The survey didn’t say that women want men to make more money than they do.

Just that women wanted men to make more money than they actually do.

Not the same thing at all.

Looks like exactly the same thing to me. Unless of course "they" manages to change meanings between sentences.

It is two completely different things. And yes, in the first sentence “they” refers to the women and in the second sentence “they” refers to the men.

The first proposition is basically that women are seeking to be “trad wives” and find men who are earning more then them so they can settle down and become housewives while their husband supports them and is the provider of the family. In other words, an unequal marriage in which the male is the provider. That is what JohnH was picking up from the survey information. And it implies that there is some problem with women who have high-paying jobs.

The second proposition is that women are just looking for men who are not “slackers” and who can hold their own in the marriage. That doesn’t mean that men have to earn MORE than the woman, just more than men currently are. In other words, a marriage of equals in which they are equal partners or close to it. This is an equally or more plausible interpretation of the survey information because the survey results do not say that women are seeking men who earn more than the woman. Just that they are seeking men who earn more than the average unmarried man currently makes.

Most of the young educated unmarried women I know fall into the second category, not the first.

[JohnH]

Ken,

Do women make more money than men, vice versa, or is pay between men and women equal?

[Ken]

Ken,

Do women make more money than men, vice versa, or is pay between men and women equal?

I don’t think you can generalize. The relevant women to this discussion are young unmarried women. Not 50-something married women who have been out of the workplace for 25-30 years. And most of the data on pay disparities is not parsed by age or marital status.

In most fields the pay is exactly the same. For example in teaching there is one pay scale for everyone based on educational attainment and number of years worked. A man and woman with the same education and seniority will earn exactly the same.

So in most fields, young men and young women who are doing similar jobs earn similar salaries.

[JohnH]

In most fields the pay is exactly the same. For example in teaching there is one pay scale for everyone based on educational attainment and number of years worked. A man and woman with the same education and seniority will earn exactly the same.

So in most fields, young men and young women who are doing similar jobs earn similar salaries.

Okay. Then it's not really going to work for young women if they expect "marriageable" men to make equal or more money than they do, since by definition the average woman will find half of men make less money than she does.

It doesn't really work if every woman expects to "marry up".

[Ken]

In most fields the pay is exactly the same. For example in teaching there is one pay scale for everyone based on educational attainment and number of years worked. A man and woman with the same education and seniority will earn exactly the same.

So in most fields, young men and young women who are doing similar jobs earn similar salaries.

Okay. Then it's not really going to work for young women if they expect "marriageable" men to make equal or more money than they do, since by definition the average woman will find half of men make less money than she does.

It doesn't really work if every woman expects to "marry up".

Nothing in that survey said that women expect to "marry up" or make equal money to every man she dates or is interested in.

It simply said that they had higher expectations of men than the dating pool provided in terms of professions and income and so forth. The stuff about equality was just my own editorializing about the potential differences in those two outlooks.

Maybe it is kind of a west coast thing. But I definitely see more HS guys who seem to lack ambition and are kind of just drifting into adulthood without any sort of plan for the future. Not all of them to be sure. Plenty of very ambitious and motivated guys out there. But a disconcerting number compared to the girls who on average seem to have their acts more together.

Of course this is the sort of thing that adults have complained about with the young since the dawn of time. So maybe it is just nothing new under the sun.

[ohio jones]

I don’t think you can generalize.

In most fields ...

[ohio jones]

Most American women hope to marry but current shortages of marriageable men - with a stable job ...

In other words, there are plenty of brides but not enough grooms.

Come on guys, not even an eye roll at this one?

[Ken]

I don’t think you can generalize.

In most fields ...

Is it fun taking snippets of sentences out of context?

[ken_sylvania]

I don’t think you can generalize.

In most fields ...

Is it fun taking snippets of sentences out of context?

Yes, it is.

[Soloist]

This is Mennonet… out of context is the name of the game!


Honestly, I think the whole issue with men having no plan is because they see the world stacked against them. We have allowed young adult men to be radicalized because they see all the benefits that the women get.

They don’t see a woman’s perspective naturally. But case in point, stem scholarships for women, scholarships for Nursing School for women.

Now, where is the Midwife scholarship for a guy? Where is the Nursing School scholarship for a male?
Where is the men scholarship for stem?

A male looks at a relationship. He holds no authority to prevent a woman from having a baby outside of making sure to cover up, a misguided view of trust, then naturally happens.
They see everyone talking about college, but they don’t have a plan. They don’t know what field to pursue because they’ve never actually been able to explore anything in high school. Hardly there are many negative stereotypes portrayed about computer science fields, and a perception that manual labor jobs are not long-term stability or going to get you a spouse.
Women by a man’s perception don’t need to formulate much they can go to college, bum around and get married and coast.
Most of what I wrote here is extremely stereotyping, but these sort of perceptions cannot be ignored if one is to try to understand some of the dynamics facing our country.

To say it bluntly, I don’t think young men see a route to the American dream anymore and places like Reddit push and foster too many of the negative experiences even couched in liberal language.
I’m sure someone could slice apart what I’ve said easily, but from when I went to college, there were too many men just kicking around still being teenagers having no real focus no real goal and basically being the epitome of a deadbeat. College was a place to hang out and have friends while you spun your wheels waiting to grow up.