There are two chapters on "Gender Rancour," and as I read them I could feel my own seratonin levels dropping. According to various scientific studies that you're gonna hate, men really do want to marry beatiful women an average 2.99 years younger than themselves, and women really do want to marry older "high status" men who make more money than they. Fortunately for my seratonin levels, I did not take too seriously the studies on what beauty is said to be (i.e. big eyes, small nose, baby face). Average and even ugly women get married all the time, their grooms too blinded by love or mysterious attractions to notice. (Bless their little hearts!)
Interestingly, whereas the male medical students in the book behave like dogs, the 20-something part-time models more-or-less abstain from sexual intercourse. They'll "snog" almost anybody, and get a lot of enjoyment from that, but they tend not to give it up. These are not particularly chaste or kindly women; they just want to get a lot of sexual enjoyment without the vulnerability of going all the way. They might not be virtuous, but they certainly are smart and confident.
Because it made me mad, here is a paragraph about a medical student who wanted to be a virgin until he was married, but was seduced by a nurse. She wants a commitment now, ah ha ha ha.
A student from a conservative background had associated sex with marriage but this changed after losing his virginity to a nurse. As their relationship progressed, differences in their backgrounds and annoyance at her feelings about a previous boyfriend made him doubt its worth. He still sleeps with her occasionally but feels sad because she pressures him to be engaged.
"I realize that I learnt a lot about life from this relationship, how to relate to a woman sexually, and I am a lot more comfortable now along those lines. Before, any girl I was going out with for a long period of time I was sizing up for marriage. Now I want to go out and have a great time and not think about a woman's marriage potential...."
Hey, thanks a lot, Nursie. Incidentally, a newly fledged medical doctor once sized up my marriage potential, and it was all very odd. He had bought a new house, and he had bought a ton of furniture, and it seemed as if he were now out to buy the future Mrs. Dr. Him. I think it pertinent to mention that I was 27, very athletic and only 115 lbs at the time. He was not very good-looking, but I humoured him a bit until he sneered at the dogma of Christ's Resurrection, and then I stopped talking to him. Plonker.
Anyway, the studies show that women still want a man who is older, has higher professional status and earns more than they do, even when women themselves are older, high status and earning quite a lot. There is no logical reason for this, suggests Oliver James. Much head-scratching. Psychologists think that perhaps because women have traditional ideas about men and their money banged into their heads in childhood, they cling to these ideas, no matter what. And this is too bad because men (it is said) don't care how much status or money women have. Your 35 year old bachelor surgeon is not looking for a fellow 35 year old surgeon but for the prettiest-to-him girl he can find. That could be the 35 year old colleague, sure, but it could also be the 20 year old nursing student down the hall.
All this means is that there are fewer cute young nursing students available, since the older surgeons have snapped them up, and fewer 35 year old male surgeons, since the 20 year old nursing students have snapped them up. This leaves 35 year old female surgeons looking balefully at cute 20 year old male orderlies, and the male orderlies flirting with the cute new cleaner in Ward B.
And this is simply stupid. I don't care if you went to Havard Law. If you are interested in nice Catholic men, it is bad mathematics to confine yourself to dating only Catholic men who are Harvard Law grads. If a woman makes a good salary, I cannot see why she needs a man who makes as much as she or more, unless she secretly hates working outside the home and wants to retire and be a full-time mum.
Meanwhile, a lot of educated women (including women in the USA, which blows my mind) habour a secret class hierarchy in their hearts, and are horrified at the idea of dating some supposedly low-caste man like a plumber, electrician or joiner. Yes, maybe 100 years ago, a middle-class woman would think twice about marrying a blue collar guy. But these are modern days and plumbers, electricians and joiners are very often savvy businessmen with, at best, employees of their own, and, at worst, great union wages. If you have not seen Moonstruck, go see it at once. Oh, better see Crossing Delaney, too.
If a man is attractive, has a good character and a steady job, who cares where he went to school? Who cares what firm he works for, or how he puts in the hours between 9 to 5 (or 8 to 4), as long as he at least moderately enjoys them? There are a lot of smart men, great conversationalists, culture vultures, with jobs less-paid and lower-status than yours. Why reject them for their jobs--or the fact that they went to State?
20 comments:
As a 25-year-old female physician, I can attest to this phenomenon. Just yesterday, at our monthly resident support group, the main topic was how the two (out of ten) men in our group were often the object of romantic overtures by female patients! Those encounters made them very uncomfortable and they were seeking advice from us ladies on how to discourage that type of behavior from their patients. Only hit on cute male doctors outside of the office! :)
On the other hand, the female portion of the group is more familiar with social conversations with the opposite sex that seem to be going well until the inevitable "So what do you do for a living?" I think I would be fine dating someone who doesn't make as much money as me, but I really just don't get asked out at all. Wah.
Even today many men are intimidated by women who make more money than them and/or have more professional status. Yes, this is stupid, but men are who they are and not who we want them to be.
Until you know one better, it is probably a good idea to be vague, like, "I work in a hospital." ("What do you do there?") "I look over the patients, see how they're doing. That kind of thing."
Of course, just saying "I'm a medical doctor" is one way of separating the easy-going guys from the guys who think life is just one big competition which they are almost guaranteed to lose, but unfortunately whole hoards of otherwise nice men are sensitive this way.
My sister-in-law is a doctor. She married in her early thirties to a non-doctor, who is more than cool that she is a doctor. They enjoy the fact that they can talk about gruesome things without the other being shocked or horrified.
Oooo, this is so bang-on. I have oodles of anecdotes that bear this out, but I'll just share a couple.
(1) And you know, I am a graduate student at McSwanky U, and I have noticed many women complaining about never meeting anyone, or having a series of bad, weirdly competitive relationships with emotionally messed up male grad students. Interestingly, most female grad students (not all, but most) in really happy marriages are married to men who are completely outside academia, have no or many fewer degrees, etc. But that is totally not what most of the single gals are looking for.
(2) A friend's story as illustration. She's a lawyer. She got engaged to another lawyer a similar age. After their engagement, they moved in together. She anticipated the wedding would happen soon. He kept putting it off. For 5 years. They worked for the same organisation, and she was much better at her job than he was, and got promoted above him. It was clear he resented this. He started criticising her weight, how she didn't clean enough, etc. He complimented other women's appearances in front of her. Then, he broke up with her and started dating a young pretty thing. She, after being very sad for a while, decided that a bloke who 'ticked all the boxes' in terms of family, education, profession, etc was not necessarily a good thing. She has begun seeing a bloke who has no degree at all. He works hard at his job but it isn't the be-all and end-all of his life and is very very keen on her. He took her to meet his parents almost straight away and tries to encourage her at work. Interestingly, she first met this man many years back, before she was with her former fiance, but at that time she discounted him because of his job. She re-met him at a friend's party after all those years and saw him in a whole new light. But, as she has pointed out to me, if she hadn't had the awful experience with her perfect on paper former fiance, would she ever have even looked at this new bloke?
Who cares about status indeed? Mensa, the "genius" club that mostly does puzzles, is made up of people from all walks of life. I do turn down dates from the numerous drunk homeless men who ask me out, though.
The reason for degree snobbery in American women, I believe, has as much to do with high school dynamics as any other class snobbery, and may apply mostly to younger women who have just graduated & thus have less perspective. This is just what I've observed in my poor, hick town in cattle country; Boston may have had other issues.
High school is a time when nearly all adults you meet ask where you are going to college, and parents who have university degrees themselves can't imagine their own kid not getting one. It ends badly for many, because kids who are not academically prepared, sick of school, or just not sure what they want to get out of college may drop out after a couple of years with crushing debt and no degree. They have no advantage in the workplace, less experience than those who started careers right out of high school, and need to start paying back their school loans. They are worse off than if they had never gone to college. Those who graduate may not know anyone who left college or their reasons for doing so, so their image of a non-college grad is of the slacker or stoner from high school who had no ambition. Before I went to college, I would never have thought I could be interested in someone without a degree. Why was I such a snob? Because the teens I knew who weren't interested in college didn't want to learn a trade either; they wanted to smoke pot, mooch off their parents, and sleep all day. Maybe start a little meth lab on the side. They were stupid, boring and crude, and they thought, correctly, that I was a nerdy, prudish bookworm. Bless their little drug-addled hearts. Americans are supposed to be egalitarian, but I really have no respect for druggies.
Tradesmen, on the other hand, I do respect. The trades you listed all require drive, skill, and years of training. I am also impressed by cops, firefighters, and soldiers. Whatever job people do after college doesn't much matter to me as long as it's not illegal or sleazy, like managing a strip club.
I got my perspective on college degrees thanks in large part to my siblings who all dropped out.
If a woman makes a good salary, I cannot see why she needs a man who makes as much as she or more, unless she secretly hates working outside the home and wants to retire and be a full-time mum.
Because men get intimidated. If they are high-status themselves, they are less apt to be intimidated, both because they are secure in themselves and they aren't being outshone.
The last half-dozen or so men to ask me out have been: doctor, engineer, engineer in the military, engineer who works in a think tank, banker, engineer, and think-tank nerd. They've also all been over the age of 30 (and some in their 40s). Theme?
Your 35 year old bachelor surgeon is not looking for a fellow 35 year old surgeon but for the prettiest-to-him girl he can find.
Let me know how those doctor-nurse relationships work out, Seraphic. :) From what I've seen, those pretty nurses don't stay pretty forever, often are not understanding of the long hours, and do not comprehend that a six-figure salary doesn't go far when med school loans (and 15 adult years of not earning money) are taken into consideration.
Furthermore, the fun part: a 25-year-old doctor wants a pretty face, but the 35-year-olds have dated loads of morons and want more. Their friends also want more for them, because the friends are all doctors, most of whom are also married to doctors. The airheaded nurse does not fit in with the social scene.
The reason for degree snobbery in American women, I believe, has as much to do with high school dynamics as any other class snobbery, and may apply mostly to younger women who have just graduated & thus have less perspective. This is just what I've observed in my poor, hick town in cattle country; Boston may have had other issues.
Boston has LOADS of issues. :) If you're looking for someplace normal, try San Diego or somewhere else out West: while they do respect the smarts it takes to get an Ivy degree, they also focus a lot more on passion and talent at whatever field you are in, not your ability to accumulate degrees.
Mmm... I don't see why the pretty nurses wouldn't understand about the long hours and the salary demands when they too work (or worked) very long shifts and have student loans to pay. And as Lorelei Lee sang, we all (not just pretty nurses) lose our charms in the end.
Nurses make good pay in the USA, much better than in Canada. (The opposite is true for schoolteachers.) But one thing about nursing, it's been devalued because it's seen as "women's work"--sort of in the way wannabe "womynpriests" devalue the lives and roles of laywomen, especially nuns-as-nuns. Not to romanticise nursing, but my understanding is that nurses become nurses because they really enjoy caring for people. And this is a very attractive quality in a potential spouse.
Interestingly, if Oliver James's studies are right, the one thing a wife does not want is for her husband to become TOO successful. A guy who works hard, so hard that he neglects his family, sometimes goes a bit funny in the head when he becomes President of Fortune 500 and starts hitting on every woman around because he thinks that he is now champion of the world and can do anything, anything, ha ha ha ha ha! And sadly there are nasty women out there (none that I know personally) who have nooooo problem messing with married men if they are rich, confident and powerful enough. Monica Lewinsky was just one of thousands.
Mmm... I don't see why the pretty nurses wouldn't understand about the long hours and the salary demands when they too work (or worked) very long shifts and have student loans to pay. And as Lorelei Lee sang, we all (not just pretty nurses) lose our charms in the end.
Thank you for making my point for me, Seraphic.
Or rather, the revised point: nurses make the mistake of thinking like you do, and assuming that their hours and debt - while not insubstantial - are about what their ideal doctor husbands will have.
If you do nursing as an undergraduate major (either to care for people or because you want to snag a doctor husband, which happens a lot, sadly), you might come out with $20,000 in debt. Maybe you work for a year or two, then go back and get an advanced degree. You start your career around age 25, with maybe $50,000 in debt, and generally reasonable hours.
Now, for a doctor in America: med school is about $300,000 on top of undergraduate debt. When you graduate, you spend about six years in residencies and internships, which leave you enough to live on but not enough to pay down your loans, so that $300k balloons to $500k by the time you start practising - around age 35.
During those years (med school to age 35), you pretty much work 80 to 100 hours a week (there was recently a law passed, I think, that limits resident's hours to 80 per week!). My college roommate, whose father is a doctor, said that she didn't see him during the week growing up; he was starting his own practise, so he was out of the house before she woke up, and not back until she was asleep. She said that went on for about five years.
There's a reason why a lot of doctors get divorced....
To add... a lot of nurses end up really surprised when their 35-year-old doctor husbands have no assets and salaries that don't go nearly as far as they would like (with student loans and a progressive tax system).
No denying that the payoff is there, but it comes late in life, and few women who marry for the money are marrying for the late-in-life payoff.
Why would a doctor marry a nurse? I say, why would a smart, savvy and economically stable nurse marry a doctor? Yikes. No offense to doctors or anything.
Seraphic, I'm a bit confused. In the past you've frequently argued that couples frequently ignore the major difficulties that can arise due to their different backgrounds.
I'll happily admit to being more immediately interested by guys with college degrees (particularly liberal artsy ones, as long as they also have direction and career plans) because A) They're just more likely to be interested and well-informed in philosophy, theology etc. etc. than someone who wasn't interested in pursuing such things at the college/university level, and B) I identify with people who were willing to make some practical sacrifices of time and money to pursue truth for its own sake. Again, guys who want to support a family have to balance that out - maybe major in something practical that interests them and minor in something like philosophy, say.
Sure, if I meet an electrician who reads and understands and talks about Plato and has excellent taste in music and just skipped college because he loves being an electrician, awesome! Also, there are tons of people who simply couldn't afford college after high school, who weren't interested as youths but have matured in their tastes since then, etc. etc. But while that sort of thing happens, it's not as though the majority of people who weren't interested in education past high school are after-hours philosopher-poets.
Certainly, college-degree-as-generic-status-symbol is silliness, but as a basic indicator of whether you're likely to share the same values as another person? Seems reasonable, though not foolproof.
On the money issue, again, isn't that the sort of thing you're usually arguing in favor of? That is, that it's natural for men to want to be leaders/providers/protectors and we should let them? If a couple is really comfortable with it, then of course it shouldn't stop them. It seems pretty normal, though, for a guy to be uncomfortable with NOT being the main provider. Isn't that just how guys are wired?
Forgive me for being so contrary, and if I'm misreading/putting words in your mouth.
In the US (East Coast, near NYC), nursing is getting to be a hot career to get into now. Registered Nurses here are well-paid and highly sought-after. It's a great career move. One of my close friends has both a brother and sister who will soon be completing their nursing Bachelor degrees. yay them!
"Why would a doctor marry a nurse? I say, why would a smart, savvy and economically stable nurse marry a doctor?" Sciencegirl, you are hilarious! Nursing is generally considered a womanly art because we are gosh darn good at it. We make good money (esp. in NYC) but most people who do for the money can't stick it out. Honestly, we do some of the grossest things ever (don't worry I won't expound on that!) with little to no thanks sometimes and money just can't compensate for that level of grossness. Neither can money compensate for the immense rewards . . . teaching a dad to change his new bubs nappies, watching a priest anoint your dying patient because you called him, holding the hand of a family-less old lady praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet knowing that momentarily she will see the face of God, rearranging a dying young mother in bed so that her six and eight year old could have one last cuddle . . . I could go on but I can't see very well now.
I woke up to a lot of comments! I'm very glad a nurse wrote in, for there seemed to be a tinge of anti-nurse feeling. I doubt nurses consciously "marry for money" any more than anyone else. I think there is difference between marrying for money and being attracted to a "good provider." When I married B.A., who currently makes much more that I do, I was not thinking in terms of "pay-off."
My guess is that nurses marry doctors because if they're at the hospital most of the time, that is who both are going to see on a regular basis. At my university, though, it was a tradition that the male engineering students were supposed to date the female nursing students. Don't know why!
Yes, I think people should have similar backgrounds. But your background is not necessarily for foreground. For example, I know a woman from a blue-collar background who excelled at university, worked her butt off, and got a PhD. While she was working on her PhD, she met a great blue-collar guy and married him. And let's face it: most of us middle-class types are one or two generations from the mill, the factory or the farm. Channel gramps.
Obviously you shouldn't marry a guy who doesn't (A) light your fire or (B) share or respect your interests. But I get annoyed when readers reject guys without taking the time to figure out what they might have in common, just because of his job or where he went to college. You're not going to know that the plumber loves opera or reads John Paul II until you talk to him about his interests. In many countries, working men are (or were) very well-read. And don't forget all those PhDs we're always hearing about who drive taxi-cabs.
Meanwhile, I respect that men traditionally feel a need to be a (or THE) breadwinner, but don't forget I always stress that you should wait for the guy who courts YOU. So if a guy digs Harvard Law Girl, and thinks it is cool that she pulls down major coin, as long as she doesn't sneer that she makes more than he does, I don't see why he would have a problem. He picked Harvard Law girl, after all. And a clever woman can think of a dozen ways to make a man feel that he is incredibly important and necessary--it doesn't have to revolve around "who makes more".
Finally, we have to be pragmatic. High-income women can fight like mad to keep the old script, work their butts off to break the glass ceiling, and desperately hope to marry a guy with EVEN MORE status and money than them, but in doing so they are limiting themselves to an ever-shrinking pool of men who DON'T feel constrained by these limits. The math is not on the women's side.
All this said, I think everyone should hang in there until they get a clear call from God that THIS guy (whoever he is) is the ONE.
Oh, and I should probably say that if you like your dad and brothers, you are probably going to get along best with men who are like your dad and brothers in some important ways, and not in other important ways.
And let's face it: most of us middle-class types are one or two generations from the mill, the factory or the farm. Channel gramps.
Including my step-gramps, do I channel the Harvard gramps, the Princeton gramps, or the Tufts gramps? :)
To quote another gramps, Gerald O'Hara of Gone With the Wind, "Like must marry like or there can be no happiness."
High-income women can fight like mad to keep the old script, work their butts off to break the glass ceiling, and desperately hope to marry a guy with EVEN MORE status and money than them, but in doing so they are limiting themselves to an ever-shrinking pool of men who DON'T feel constrained by these limits. The math is not on the women's side.
Um... there's a huge, massive, gigantic difference between not restricting yourself to Mr. Harvard Law and dating a guy without any college education.
My advice to women isn't to marry up, treating the world as a strict hierarchy, but to marry within their cluster. Miss Harvard Law meets the sexy valedictorian of UMass? We can work with that. Harvard Law (Miss or Mr.) meets No College (Miss or Mr.) - usually a disaster, even once married. I don't doubt that it sometimes works, but, even when there is attraction, it usually fails.
When I lived in Boston, I learned to talk Boston. So all other readers shield your eyes because I'm going to talk Boston to a Boston person. In Boston this is called "being honest".
Theob, on what date do you mention your Harvard gramps, your Princeton gramps and your Tufts gramps? The first or the second? Either way, you're not getting a third. IVY LEAGUE MEN DON'T CARE IF WOMEN ARE IVY LEAGUE. And perfectly nice non-Ivy League men will get your message and bolt.
What "upper middle class" men--the Harvard, Princeton and Tufts men--in the USA care about is youth and beauty. YOUTH AND BEAUTY. Happily youth and beauty are relative, so there may be some 65 year olds out there who might be interested. Interested? Why not? Isn't that shallow?
Marriage to a rich guy has always been a ticket "up and out" for young and lovely (not aging and average) women. And women of all kinds are interested in men with a position in the community. These men have their pick of the most beautiful women, whereas ordinary women do not have their pick of these men.
Look, I'm not telling wealthy women to marry just any old guy who wants them, the corner crack dealer or whoever. I'm just suggesting they stop waiting until they find the man who makes more than they do and who has a higher status job because these men are rare. The higher you go up the ladder, the rarer they are. Do the math.
Meanwhile, college is no guarantee of either intelligence or respect for money. A lot of middle class people are drowning in personal debt while canny business people with solid trades save carefully and buy homes. There's a huge, gigantic, massive difference between dating a skilled worker/business who never bothered with college and dating a pothead living on welfare. Heck, some of those potheads on welfare WENT to college.
Sure, people should marry people who have the same principal values. But these cut across "class" lines. If the right to wear an Ivy League sweatshirt while jogging is your principal value, then good luck. I always think women should stay Single and find happiness in that then compromise on their principal values.
This is sort of off-topic, but I'm interested in your aggressive attitude (you had a lot of fights on Dawn Eden, I remember) and looked up other comments, discovering that although you were brought up Catholic and are conservative, you're an atheist.
As a matter of fact, if you are interested, I may be able to introduce you to a great conservative atheist I know in Boston. No guarantees, but email me.
Seraphic:
When I lived in Boston, I learned to talk Boston. So all other readers shield your eyes because I'm going to talk Boston to a Boston person. In Boston this is called "being honest".
ROFL. You're more than welcome to "talk Boston" to me any time!
First, up front: I am very sorry for upsetting you. This disagreement (and I suspect we agree on more than we disagree about) aside, I love what you do for Singles, think that you're fabulous, and hope that I'm contributing (rather than undermining) your commbox.
Next, a quick thing: we agree that women usually married up as their only way of moving up in society. Now that they can earn their own way up, there's less need to accomplish that via matrimony. I'm a huge, huge fan of "If I want money, I'll make it myself!"
Next, something else we probably agree on, but you might not think about (?) see (?) ... ? the way I do:
Middle-class values. Save, live below your means, mow your own lawn, buy used cars and drive them until they die, be more concerned about adding to your money than spending it to prove you had it.
Those values were ground into my head growing up, just as my grandparents ground them into my parents' heads, and their parents did to them. It's not about class, but about financial stability and ensuring that money is there for you in your retirement, for the kids, and for the grandkids. IKEA's founder, who is the sixth richest man in the world and drives a 17-year-old Volvo, is a perfect example of this. (Perhaps, as with learning to "talk Boston", you saw a bit of this while there...? Or did no one tell you that when you see a parent driving a 15-year-old Saab picks up his kid at BC, and the kid has to work for his spending money, that that's that family with gobs of money?)
Not to open that can of worms again, nor be overly aggressive, but this is the root of the failure of a lot of inter-class/different background/different earning-power marriages.
What I've seen of marriages is that it's often a man who dates pretty, cute, fun, and perky, albeit with different class values (see above), and then the marriages crash and burn when she finds how tight a financial leash is there, or spends all of his money that he wants to save.
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Theob, on what date do you mention your Harvard gramps, your Princeton gramps and your Tufts gramps? The first or the second? Either way, you're not getting a third.
I don't mention it unless asked or unless someone meets my family, which is why one, maybe two of the couple dozen men I've dated know that.
Before you make too many (rather cruel and not exactly accurate) assumptions, Seraphic, please recall the context: you talked about finding a man who fits into your family - whose life matches those of your brothers, parents, and grandparents. You said, "Channel Gramps." .
I'm not a total 19th-century person on this, and really believe that women should be open-minded about what constitutes success and education, but, from experience, caution against going too far afield. Email to follow (probably tomorrow) about WHY I'm so strident on this.
Hum... seem to be getting an error. Not sure why.
At any rate, two more (quick) things, more personal this time:
I was "brought up" Catholic in that I went to Mass every Sunday and was baptised into the Church. I didn't have CCD, First Holy Communion, Confession, etc. In recent years, I've (slowly) wandered back to the Church and am no longer an atheist.
So, thank you for your very sweet offer, but I might end up asking your conservative Boston friend if he would like to quietly maybe sorta stick his nose into St. X's on Sunday, and that would disappoint him horribly! However, I do spend loads of time with conservatives, and will keep my eyes open for a nice, conservative, non-religious young lady for him. Also, if he would like to gather with conservatives, and discuss non-religious topics, I can introduce him to some of my groups.
As for Dawn's blog: I mostly (only?) tussled with L., (Lisa, I think), who is not religious (okay, that's fine), endorses premarital sex (her line, best I can recall: "I slept with every man I could, so that when I found the right one, I would know,"), dressing in revealing clothing, or abortion. If I mostly agreed with her, I think I would have gritted my teeth, but just could not tolerate her.
By the way, if you ever feel like seeing my rational, non-aggressive side, I'll send you the link to my TV debut. :)
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