Advice for single women

"K" mentioned in a comment that John T. Molloy wrote a book about how women can find a husband. That's something I need to put on my to-read list! (I was a fan of his Dress for Success book.)

I found the following user-submitted review at Amazon.com interesting:

i wanted to read this book after it was made fun of recently at a magazine for feminists and women who generally agree that there are a lot of things to life than getting a man. being alone for so long and not being able to pinpoint exactly why, it picked my curiosity. i read it and i've lost track of how many times this book has made me cry. it was all right there how i sabotaged my own life against having a mate. now that it's easier for me to be kidnapped by terrorists than to find a man i realize (with the help of this book) all that i did wrong: the long years spent studying while my friends were out partying and getting boyfriends, the dead end jobs where there were no available men, the long hours working odd shifts, the occasional unavailable man (mr. right now), the "a little too-casual" appearance, waiting for the one that got away to come back (he never will), the many requirements that no man seemed to fulfill... i'm alone with no prospects of getting married and it's all my fault.

sister, i don't want to sound like if you don't have a man you're a loser but i'm telling you: my money and my graduate degree don't keep me warm on saturday nights. eventually your friends are married with kids and you find yourself making every night a blockbuster night with your cats. even my gynecologist told me to hurry up if i wanted to have babies. it's probably too late for me but save yourself. find balance in your life. if you want to get married in your thirties you have to start looking hard for prospects when you are in your late twenties because you'll be amazed when one day you open your eyes and realize that all men seem to have poof! dissapeared. i wish i had read this ten years ago. oh, all this coming from a "feminist"... somebody who was very proud of her "independence". a feminist that is very educated and very lonely...

Remember, there's no way of knowing if the above review is real, or if someone (probably a loser male with no girlfriend) made it up.

RESPONSE TO PETER'S COMMENT

Peter thinks this was made up. He states, "note that for someone who claims to be so highly educated, the writer has a shaky knowledge of grammar and composition, and no knowledge whatsoever of capitalization."

Maybe he's correct, but remember, you don't have to be a genius to get an M.S.W. or an M.Ed.

"Before Sunrise" correctly pointed out that lots of supposedly educated women write just like this. I've seen the phenomenon myself.

I'm not saying that this post is not the work of the stereotypical "angry white male loser," only that there's really no way to know for sure.

According to the Gender Genie, the passage is strongly feminine. The Gender Genie isn't proof of anything, but it's evidence that the writer is really a woman.

Comments

[M. Hodak]

This one may or may not be real, but I have heard echoes of this sentiment from many, talented single women in their late 30s and 40s. My take-away is that they've been had by the "you can have it all" feminism they grew up with.

[K]

You'll probably like it. I find Molloy is kind of "Applied Fussell." The danger is that I personally got a little too image-oriented and such reading his books. There's a lot to be said for working hard and getting results, and really the best / only hope for a young man with a technical background in a low-status job is to succeed in his job rather than being put off by the lowliness of it all. I'm trying to be results-oriented these days and accept my status (for the time being).

Molloy also wrote a book about "How to work the competition into to the ground," which is quite unlike the others, as it focuses on results and production rather than presentation.

[Before Sunrise]

Might not be a real comment, but in all honesty, sounds quite real to me. Have heard a lot of women (as M. Hodak also said) saying similar things.

Quite sad, really.

[Peter]

Yes, that might be real, as opposed to something written by a loser male with no girlfriend. Just as I might be selected Miss Nude America 2008.

[Turambar]

It points out how valuable Amazon's graded comment system is.

For any controversial subject, proponents jump in a review how well a book fits their personal theories (here the reviewers were offended by the thought that most men prefer slim women) rather than the content of the book.

Here with the Amazon system its possible pretty quickly get a sense of what people were grading their reviews on.

[Peter]

But seriously ... the reason why I'm convinced this is fake is the writer's use of every tired old cliche and stereotype. He (I use the masculine pronoun deliberately) tosses in such chestnuts as:

it's easier for me to be kidnapped by terrorists than to find a man

mr. right now

waiting for the one that got away to come back (he never will)

my money and my graduate degree don't keep me warm on saturday nights

you find yourself making every night a blockbuster night with your cats

even my gynecologist told me to hurry up if i wanted to have babies

one day you open your eyes and realize that all men seem to have poof! dissapeared

a feminist that is very educated and very lonely

I'm telling you, no one genuinely writes or speaks in such a cliche- and stereotype-ridden manner. Also note that for someone who claims to be so highly educated, the writer has a shaky knowledge of grammar and composition, and no knowledge whatsoever of capitalization.

[Sapphire]

The reason that some women are still single and childless in their 30's and 40's is probably because they have a low sex drive in comparison to their married counterparts. I mean guys find time to have a love life even though they work hard and have acquired degrees. I think this nonsense of blaming career and education for their single status is a load of crap. If well educated successful men can get married and have kids there is no reason that women in a similar situation can't at least be married. Do these women ever stop to think why they are so driven to succeed in the corporate world but are not as driven to find a mate?

[K]

I mean guys find time to have a love life even though they work hard and have acquired degrees. I think this nonsense of blaming career and education for their single status is a load of crap. If well educated successful men can get married and have kids there is no reason that women in a similar situation can't at least be married.

It seems that women do a much better job of that than men these days (see the comments here about the attractive, sociable, yet high-achieving girls at Bedford, MA).

I, as a man, bought the book to see if it could help my situation, so I don't think the sexes are that far off.

[Jim Beam]

I suspect it was written by a religious, Liberty University-type educated, highly conservative, pro-family, anti-abortion, young, white male w/ no girlfriend. Who looks at feminist, educated, liberal, career oriented, childless women with absolute disgust and disappointment.

[K]

Now that almost all women work (and are a majority in college, etc.), what does it mean for a woman to be 'career-oriented'? A public school teacher with a master's in education probably would be called 'highly-educated career woman' by many journalists despite trivially easy classes and 3-months off each year. A woman gunning to be CEO of Proctor & Gamble is in a very different category. (same goes for men)

Do "career women" really marry less these days? I don't seem to see it.

I do see that female graduate students are relatively uninterested in dating. Many of them are with a high school / college boyfriend, and the remainder don't seem to care much at all about relationships, for the time being.

[Peter]

I suspect it was written by a religious, Liberty University-type educated, highly conservative, pro-family, anti-abortion, young, white male w/ no girlfriend.

A young man like that would have a girlfriend, or might be married. Deeply religious and conservative people have traditional views on marrying early. And from what I understand, fundamentalist churches are very effective matchmakers. Religious colleges, too - it's a reasonable guess that the percentage of students at a school like Liberty who are engaged (or even married) at the time they graduate is way higher than at most secular colleges.

On the other side of the spectrum, at least based on people I know or know about, young men with liberal/radical political views seem to do okay as well. They may be less likely to marry young, but they'll do fine in the dating and sex department.

On the other hand, libertarian men tend to have a tough time finding women.

[AG]

A 2004 University of Washington study looking at the education and marriage status of 40-44 yr old women looked at this issue.

Back in 1980, women in that age group who had completed three years of graduate school were 14% less likely to be married than women with only HS diplomas. But this number has been steadily dropping and as of now they are only about 4% less likely to be married than the high school graduate. Interestingly, marriage rates for women with only HS diplomas have moved in the opposite direction & dropped 5% since 1980.

Perhaps this is an indication that marriage is becoming more of a class marker?

[AG]

To elaborate on the class/status angle - from Hymowitz's "Marriage & Caste in America":

"...educated women still believe in marriage as an institution for raising children. They know that they’d better marry if they want their children to succeed academically, which increasingly is critical to succeeding in the labor market. The New Economy may have made single motherhood a workable arrangement for high-earning mothers in purely economic terms, but it made a husband a must-have in terms of child rearing. No one understands better than an Amherst or Stanford B.A. that her children will have to go to college one day—the bigger the college name, the better—if they are to keep their middle-class status."

"These women also understand how to get their kids college-bound. Educated, middle-class mothers tend to be dedicated to what I have called The Mission, the careful nurturing of their children’s cognitive, emotional, and social development, which, if all goes according to plan, will lead to the honor roll and a spot on the high school debate team, which will in turn lead to a good college, then perhaps a graduate or professional degree, which will all lead eventually to a fulfilling career, a big house in a posh suburb, and a sense of meaningful accomplishment."

[Disgruntled]

Jim Beam,

I met a number of Liberty graduates in grad school. You're right about the disgust part, but you're wrong about the marriage part. Most of them got married in their 20s and have a bunch of children by now.

They didn't seem to have trouble meeting like-minded women at their churches.

On the other hand, libertarian men tend to have a tough time finding women.

Generally because libertarian men tend to be ugly nerds with a bizzare sense of superiority and poor social skills.

Jacqui Passey is hot amongst libertarian males because there are so few libertarian women. Otherwise, in the real world, she'd be passed off as a masculine looking tomboy.

[Dizzy]

Surely someone else has noticed the poor grammar, and general uneducated tone of the comment quoted? I'm sorry to be mean to her, because she sounds unhappy. But this woman doesn't sound like a prize for men, OR a role model for other women. She sounds like an impressionable moron. And her testimonial reads like the back of a bottle of diet pills. (Despite her claims to education.) I call bullshit.

[Before Sunrise]

"Surely someone else has noticed the poor grammar, and general uneducated tone of the comment quoted?"

I had noticed but let it go because I have seen many "educated" women write with poor grammar. Maybe I'm too naive.

[SFG]

Yeah, I've noticed the same thing. A lot of women like to do the 'all lower case' thing. Being smart is not traditionally feminine, one of the reasons there were so many intellectual women in the feminist movement.

[Peter]

Peter thinks this was made up. He states, "note that for someone who claims to be so highly educated, the writer has a shaky knowledge of grammar and composition, and no knowledge whatsoever of capitalization."

Maybe he's correct, but remember, you don't have to be a genius to get an M.S.W. or an M.Ed.

Steve Sailer recently posted a chart showing average GRE scores by field of graduate study. Social work (the M.S.W.) was at the very bottom and most education fields weren't much higher. Physics was on top.

In any event, the grammatical issues are only a small part of why I believe this Amazon review is fake. What is much more telling is the writer's use of cliches and stereotypes.

The simple fact of the matter is that according to the US Census about 87% of women with more than 2 yrs of graduate education get married. If this reviewer is in the remaining 13%...well, let's just say there may be something else about her that men find unappealing. It's not that hard to get married - blaming the fact that you aren't because you're too accomplished is BS and reeks of denial. If you're unmarried & don't want to be, it's probably because you are unattractive (physically or personality-wise) in other ways. Deal with it.

This reviewer, if it's really a woman, is unmarried for reasons unrelated to her fancy job or degree - she needs to take a look in the mirror, literally & figuratively.

[Jim Beam]

Good point, Disgruntled. Perhaps it was someone not smart enough to get into Liberty University and instead went to a relatively unknown state owned university where religious kids are a fringe group? And obviously, wasn't popular with the overwhelmingly secular, liberal student body.

I ran into quite a few of these types at my shitty state school. This piece looks like something they would conjure up in their dorm room and brag about it to their other fringe buddies.

It's not that hard to get married - blaming the fact that you aren't because you're too accomplished is BS and reeks of denial. If you're unmarried & don't want to be, it's probably because you are unattractive (physically or personality-wise) in other ways. Deal with it.

I should add - it may also be because you are holding out for someone who is way out of your league or are wasting time dating inappropriate men who have no intention of marrying.

Advice For Single Women:

1 - do you look the best you can?
2 - is your personality off-putting?
3 - do you make any effort to date or meet other marriage-minded singles or are you under the impression that you are

a)in a romantic comedy & your soulmate will fall out of the sky & run into you in some cute & fateful way & you'll get married & live happily ever after?
b) in that movie where that playboy Adonis you're dating who has no interest in marriage will suddenly realize how awesome you are & publicly serenade you before proposing marriage on bended knee?
4- do you think you "deserve" someone who due to their looks, income, class, brains, etc. far outrank you in the sexual marketplace? Most people marry people similar to themselves - if there's a large gap between you & the types of people you'd like to marry, you need to think about that.

It's these things that are impeding your marital ambitions, not that you're brilliant or have a phd. Work on them & you'll be fine.

[Peter]

The simple fact of the matter is that according to the US Census about 87% of women with more than 2 yrs of graduate education get married. If this reviewer is in the remaining 13%...well, let's just say there may be something else about her that men find unappealing.

It's likely that some of the unmarried 13% are happy to be unmarried. We tend to overlook the fact that marriage isn't everyone's cup of tea, so to speak.

According to the Gender Genie, the passage is strongly feminine. The Gender Genie isn't proof of anything, but it's evidence that the writer is really a woman.

No, it's evidence that the writer uses a lot of I-statements & talks about her feelings - which is exactly what you'd need to do to write this review. Anyway, a quick google of the gender genie will show that it's record is hardly confidence-inspiring.

Why did you pick this particular review to spotlight? There are plenty of other reviews written by women who speak highly of the book & its accuracy that are also far more articulate and well-written, as well as less suspicious and cliche-ridden.

Also, why exactly is this something you "need" to put on your to-read list? AFAIK, you're not a single woman looking for a man....or are you? Uh oh, someone break out the Gender Genie.

[DML]

So are you suggesting women party more and study less to find a man?

Here are a couple of theories:

1) There are plenty of available men - just not many that these single women find attractive.

2) Of the attractive men available, not many are attracted to *them*.

So while studying less and partying more may increase their odds (as they'll come into contact with more men), I don't know how much of advantage that'll be if they aren't physically attractive to begin with.

[Boobees]

Not to trip any irony alarms, but Peter might be the same guy who fell for that picture of an Asian man dressed (poorly) as a woman. Recognizing gender does not appear to be his strength.

[DML]

From the anonymous 9:00pm poster:

"Also, why exactly is this something you "need" to put on your to-read list? AFAIK, you're not a single woman looking for a man....or are you? Uh oh, someone break out the Gender Genie."

One thing you'll learn about Half Sigma is that while he's a smart guy, in many ways he's like everyone else. He's made his decision before seeing any evidence to support it. Thus, he selectively examines things that support this opinion and ignores the rest.

While this is a criticism, I don't mean to single out Half Sigma and give the rest of the world a pass. Everyone does this at least to some extent.

[the professor]

It's likely that some of the unmarried 13% are happy to be unmarried. We tend to overlook the fact that marriage isn't everyone's cup of tea, so to speak.

Well, women have it easy when they are young, really easy. Take career oriented women for example: they leverage their looks and womanhood to advance career-wise. Not only that, but they do get more attention from both the opposite and the same sex. If they want to have fun, they can go out and pick a guy from 100 just for the night. This attention makes them feel good. It makes them feel they have options. They don't need to marry. They can be seen as successful, smart, educated, independent women. What happens when they get older, don't look as good and possibly because of the feminist disgust about many womanly things, (such as studying fashion, taking care of their bodies/face, etc) they loose the leverage that they would naturally have in the world? Well, suddenly life sucks: men don't pay attention to you and women don't care about you (you're not a competition anymore). All of the sudden this becomes depressing and you don't have a clue on how to fix it. (the advices would be in the non-feminist magazines, on which you won't lower yourself to read) Moreover, even uglier men in your age bracket become less interested in you, because honestly late 30's and 40's is not a good age to have children. At this point, life really becomes sad and you begin missing the attention like crazy. You look at your peers, and women who in the past you considered worse of (less educated, worse/no career, uglier, etc) are all of the sudden better of - they get attention from their husbands and are always busy with children. The expression "beauty fades" is true for both sexes, but it has bigger repercussions on women.

[Jim Beam]

I wouldn't go as far as saying that "women have it easy when they're young", but rather, "attractive women have it easy when they're, well...any age."

Being an unattractive woman certainly has its disadvantages. At least an ugly guy can find lucrative opportunities in blue collar professions where he doesn't have to worry about being labeled a "homo" by his buddies. I can't speak for ugly women, but what on earth can they look forward to in life?

All of the ugly women that I have met in my life always worked in telemarketing or in customer service.

Something to look forward too, eh?

If a woman is ugly, she better have a likeable and laid back personality. Generally, ugly people are very unlikeable due to their life long mistreatment by average and attractive looking people.

And here's my advice for single women:

You want romance? Rent a DVD.

If you go by the Internet, massive hordes of bitter, lonely, unmarried, dateless male nerds and bitter, barren, unmarried, lonely late-thirties women are roving America seeking mates to no avail.

This ignores the reality that the vast majority of these people (including the career-oriented women you're describing) will be married by age 40; most men and women will marry way before that. Does that mean they'll all enjoy a pre-married social life filled with tons of dates & admirers? No, but they will in all likelihood find a spouse.

Most people who want to be married and/or have kids will make it happen. Those who aren't married by 40 are likely defective in some way (and unaware of this or unwilling to change) or not very interested in marriage/children. This is much ado about nothing.

[Peter]

Not to trip any irony alarms, but Peter might be the same guy who fell for that picture of an Asian man dressed (poorly) as a woman.

Well, yeah.

And you don't even want to know what happened with that hooker during my trip to Thailand ...

[Peter]

If you go by the Internet, massive hordes of bitter, lonely, unmarried, dateless male nerds and bitter, barren, unmarried, lonely late-thirties women are roving America seeking mates to no avail.

Well heck, if you go by the Internet everyone votes Libertarian, home-schools their children and is obsessed with science fiction.

[the professor]

Btw, many educated women I know (from Harvard, MIT, etc, and even one of them who's doing a PhD in literature at Princeton) use only lower case. I don't understand the phenomenon well, but it happens. Maybe they want to say that their time is too precious to press the shift, and they hurry. It's just my guess.

[Ed]

I honestly think that that American women would be happier if they were more superficial.

Most single women I know put a premium on forming a long term relationship, and are really interested in looking a man's personality to make sure they are compatible. However, there is simply know way of finding out most of this information until you have been living with a guy for several years. Most men don't have a good idea of their own personalities. I think the result of this is to fall too easily for con artists who are able to tailer their image to fit exactly what women want, and to exclude a large number of guys that are quite compatible. The male method of initially judging by entirely superficial criteria (looks) then resisting getting really attached early seems to get better results.

Also, non-American women just don't seem to put such a high premium on having compatible personalities in finding a partner, so this may be a cultural thing.

I also disagree with the idea that well, most people get married in their 20s and have children, so this isn't a problem. The divorce rate in the US is above 50%. Most people get married in their 20s, have children, the marriages fail, then they remarry. So yes, both women and men in the U.S. are having problems picking mates, and no, this wasn't so much the case in the past.

So yes, both women and men in the U.S. are having problems picking mates, and no, this wasn't so much the case in the past.

Or more likely, people pick mates as well as they ever did, it's just that now people don't have the much more practical view of marriage they had in the past. Nowadays, they don't feel like they need to stick with these mates - they deserve to trade up.

Now you mainly marry based on romance & passion, because you've allegedly found your "soulmate". Except as those exhilarating feelings inevitably dissipate and the marriage matures into a stable and comfortable but unexciting relationship, now people feel like something's wrong & they need to get out (although to be fair, divorce rates drop significantly the more educated you are).

[Turambar]

I think its a female because of the "waiting for the one that got away to come back". Men dont think this way but women do. I know three women who each have spent *years* waiting for some guy to come back to them.

[trumwill]

A young man like that would have a girlfriend, or might be married. Deeply religious and conservative people have traditional views on marrying early. And from what I understand, fundamentalist churches are very effective matchmakers.

I'd suspect that they also end up divorced in higher numbers than one would think. Both in the south and mormon west you have average-to-high rates of divorce (as a percentage of the population) because the religious gum keeping it together is offset by more people getting married and getting married younger.

[Peter]

I think its a female because of the "waiting for the one that got away to come back". Men dont think this way but women do. I know three women who each have spent *years* waiting for some guy to come back to them.

A man who's trying to pass off his review as something written by a woman, and who has some idea of how women write, might indeed use phrases of that sort.

[Spungen]

The Gender Genie isn't proof of anything, but it's evidence that the writer is really a woman.

I've run a number of your posts through. You're a woman at least half the time.

Perhaps this is an indication that marriage is becoming more of a class marker?

Yes, it's my perception that working-class people find marriage much less attractive than they did 30 years ago (if not getting married, then staying married). I suspect this is because the men are less likely to have good jobs and the women are more likely to have the same lousy jobs the men do, so the financial incentive to put up with each other is gone. I wish I knew some hot stud who could crunch the GSS for me and tell me if it's true.

Does that mean they'll all enjoy a pre-married social life filled with tons of dates & admirers? No, but they will in all likelihood find a spouse.

Thank you, blank, for making this important distinction. Internet commenters often improperly equate one state with the other. Many people who claim to be unhappy about not being in the second state are actually unhappy about lack of the first state.

Two other states that get mistakenly combined are those of "feminist" and "unhappy, man-obsessed single woman." I've noticed little if any overlap. Many commenters seem to mistakenly assume any woman with a job has strong feminist beliefs.

Also, non-American women just don't seem to put such a high premium on having compatible personalities in finding a partner, so this may be a cultural thing.

You think so? I think women are way too focused on perfect compatibility. The American pool is just too diverse for the level of agreement most people are looking for.