I'll admit it. I'm ticked off. Last November, I was holed up in bed with the flu, dying for a cup of chicken soup, and my boyfriend of three years, Tim, was no where to be found. I wouldn't think of calling and asking him to pick up some NyQuil©. He made it clear from the get-go that he wasn't interested in contributing much to the relationship. Like the time I asked him if he could massage my neck. "I don't enjoy doing things when I'm asked," he reprimanded me. Forget the fact that I grilled organic chicken dinners for him and massaged his back almost every day.
That night, two days before the Thanksgiving break, I knew he was at his favorite sports bar, Game, and he'd get to me when he was ready. Feeling a bit dizzy from fever, I sauntered down to my mailbox and picked up my new issue of The Atlantic. Kate Bolick's cover story stared up at me: "What Me, Marry? In Today's Economy Men are Falling Apart." Damn, another article like "The End of Men" by Hanna Rosin (published in the same magazine a year earlier). I was already scared shitless that eligible men my age (42) were a dying breed.
A glutton for punishment, I dug in. Midway through, anxiety gnawed at me. My deepest fear was confirmed yet again: The economic shift in America meant women now out-performed men in college and the work place rendering a potential partner -- an earning man -- extinct.
Stick it out with Tim, I coached myself. He was 42, charismatic and funny. He made a great living working at one of the top film studios in LA and we loved talking current events and Obama. Like me, he was an NPR junkie. He'll see what a great catch I am, eventually.
As I was finishing the article, my phone beeped with a text. "Come over now?" Tim asked. It was 12:35 a.m.. "Sure," I texted back, my resistance down. As he sauntered into my house and slipped under the sheets, I reminded myself about something I had known since the first week of meeting him: I'm dealing with a narcissist and he's not coming around. Where will I find a compatible partner?
Was it coming to OK Cupid or Match? I turned over, facing the wall, reviewing my boyfriends over the past 15 years -- the actor, the attorney, the chef -- and it hit me: I've never had a problem meeting bread winners. My challenge is meeting a wage earner who cares about something besides himself, his screenplays and Tim Tebow. Lying there that night listening to the Santa Ana's scorch Los Angeles, I had another revelation: The premise of Bolick's article (that women are surpassing men economically) only addresses part of the problem. I see a deeper crisis: a moral disparity.
It was irritating that Tim never offered to wash a dish or bring over take-out, but the bigger issue was that it never occurred to him to contribute to any group at all except himself. After inviting him numerous times to spend time with an amazing 14-year-old girl who I've been mentoring for nearly eight years, he managed to meet her once for frozen yogurt. When I asked him if he ever gave money to the Obama campaign or, say, NPR, he readily said no, almost baffled that I contributed to both, even though my income was diminishing. What did he, and others I dated, lack? A generosity of spirit and social consciousness.
While I may have a thing for narcissists, evidence suggests that women in general are more empathetic, altruistic and community-oriented than men. For instance, a 2002 study called "Helping Hands: A Study of Altruistic Behavior" by Elizabeth Monk-Turner found that even though men are socialized for chivalry, women were more likely than men to help a stranger in need. A 2009 study in the Journal of Economic Literature by Rachel Croson and Uri Gneezy found that women are more likely than men to reciprocate acts of kindness. Studies by Catherine Eckel and Philip Grossman from the Monash University Department of Economics show that women are more generous and sensitive than men.
What accounts for this break-down along gender lines? Socialization, says Dr. Jesse Prinz, a professor of philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center and author of numerous books on the topic, including Beyond Human Nature. "Though things are changing now, 30-50 year-old males were still taught that being to be emotional is to be weak. Morality -- and feelings such as empathy and charity -- are grounded in emotion," explains Prinz, who happens to be a 41-year-old man. We grew up, he adds, at the tail end of the time when people still mourned the birth of a daughter. "It was still okay to treat boys as little princes, which leads to a huge sense of entitlement. People still do it, of course, but there is more consciousness about that form of sexism."
Prinz also asserts that we're inculcated in the value system of the political times. "We were raised in the Reagan generation -- a time of excess and hyper-capitalism. The younger generation had the Clinton years and two unpopular Bush presidents, so there may be moral improvements."
Bottom line: It's the worst of both worlds right now for women. "On the one hand, women have made great advances and there's been this economic shift, but there's cultural residue. Many men my age still feel entitled," Prinz said.
Liberalization of social and sexual mores has stopped providing women with payoffs, asserts Dr. Greta Kroeker, associate professor of history at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. "We can play in the same sandbox now, but we often only get the side with the cat piss." Kroeker adds that part of the challenge is the fact that the right has a vocabulary for talking about morality, though it misidentifies the sources of immorality (i.e. homosexuality, government, unwed mothers). As a result, when liberals want to respond, they either lack the vocabulary to argue about it in secular terms or they dismiss the issue of morality altogether because they find the religious agenda of the right distasteful. "Liberals need to develop a vocabulary to address these issues."
So can men be retrained? Yes, says Prinz. "The shift is already happening -- we're just at a cultural lag." As women continue to earn more and be the bread winners and as men continue to be more involved in child rearing and share house hold responsibilities, the two sides will meet in the middle."
Here's hoping.
Follow Nicole Balin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ballinpr
This is why countries with an overabundance of feminism tend to be weaker and less effective, and prone to division over ethics.
And I'm not going to note that the men she is going to meet now, should she try to meet a man of roughly her age, know her type well; these men are divorced, probably, they've sacrificed whole decades of their lives becoming high-status, alpha males with a positive net worth in order to care for the woman who recently divorced them; they've had their first 25 dates with 25 women who walk around with a checklist defining their 'minimum standards'; and they know that they are merely a target for a desperate middle-aged woman, filled with barely suppressed resentment at the life experience the men have accumulated while the women were dating narcissistic creeps. And they know that if they didn't have money and if they didn't look like they had money, they would be of no interest to the women like Balin.
With nearly 1100 comments, I find it quite interesting, indeed.
Unfortunately, the leading reason is "like attracts like", even if you are the "like" that has been playing the role of "victim" to emotionally unavailable or emotionally abusive men.
Stop wasting your life on these sort of d-b's and look inward.
First realization: it is better to be alone than to "settle" for someone else's terrible treatment of you. If this is impossible, then really examine why your ego cannot handle being 30 and single.
Isn't this usually the case for most women? So long as single modern American women continue to show a prefernce for alpha men, bad boys, and high status men, nothing will change.
Men just are not as picky as women. We tend to have a general notion of what we desire in a woman. Women tend to have this highly specific ideal of what they want in a man. We are willing to be flexible, while women have a hard time letting go of the ideal man.
I was chatting with a woman recently. She wants a guy who is at least six feet tall. She said she keeps "running into short guys" I asked her if she knew the percentage of men over 18 yrs of age who were six feet or taller? She said "No." I told her I was around 15%. She said, "Oh, I guess that is why I am running into so many short men." I just laughed. Did this change her requirement? I would not hold my breath. This is typical of most single women. They just cling to the ideal and refuse to let go!
I think what most single women are seeking is an alpha man who happens to be nice. It is possible, though highly unlikely. Usually these men are egocentric, controlling, and just not emotionally available. Yet, women persist.
And I've seen men be picky as well... not in terms of who they sleep with, but in terms of who they will have a committed relationship with.
By this time, such women are no longer highly desired by single men their age. The peak years of physical attraction for most women is 17-29, I would argue. Once a woman goes past 30 her "appeal" diminishes markedly to most men. Is it fair? No. Is it right? No. But, it is the way it is.
At 40, most women appeal primarily to 50-60 yr old men. I know women (40 +) who complain that with online dating, even if they state very clearly they ONLY want to date men their age, most of the replies are from men lying about their age.
So, it begs the question. Is it wise to wait "to learn your lesson?" Personally, I think women should do what makes them happy. However, they must be aware of the potential negative consequences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOxb_SW4Cfg
It (patriarchy) also seems to engenger hypergamy in women.
All she needs to do is blame men.
As for those "experts" who claim to have all the answers, you can always find one that reinforces your beliefs. Like Prinz with his opinion on male entitlement and Kroeker with her similar outlooks. Wasn't it feminists that sang the entitlement promise of "having it all", only to find it as elusive as the brass ring? Instead of listening to Prinz's predictions of male re-training, maybe women, like the author, should take a look in the mirror re-evaluate her own narcissistic tendencies.
Let me get this straight. Your boyfriend said he didn't want to contribute much to the relationship, wouldn't give you a neck massage if asked and had you thinking that there was no point in asking him to pick up medicine for you when you're sick.
But he made a lot of money, like Obama and listend to NPR...
I see the dilemma. When it comes to relationships, it's much more about being able to share thoughts on All Things Considered than to be thoughtful of the other person. You never want to feel as though you can ask a favor of a partner...
I've gone out in the middle of the night to get my wife everything from feminine products to Cheerios (when she was pregnant and thought Cheerios was the only thing she could keep down). And I think most guys who love their wives or girlfriends do the same.
Not because of any moral superiority or equality, but because that's what you do for people you care about.
This also marks about the 10,000th article on HP from a woman who complains that she's attracted to narcissists (or addicts or bad boys or whatever).
Either find a guy who will come through with Nyquil at midnight when you have a fever or keep dating guys who you KNOW will not do that and accept it. How does whining about it in a column help anything?
Stay home tonight. Don't let anybody come over. Look at yourself in the mirror for a long time. A long long time. Ask yourself, What is good about me? Why should the kind of guy I think I want gimme the time of day? Or anything else? Why should he want me? Why should he even notice me? If I knew what kinda guy I really wanted, how would I find him? Where? What would he be like? Why would he like me?
We usually date the kind of people we really feel we deserve. So why do you really feel you deserve the kind of people you date?
Keep asking that, until you start getting some clear and honest answers from yourself.
Then write another article about it.
Tom Pain