“As women pursue more education and more lucrative careers when they can’t find a husband, the ironic effect is that it will only get harder to find a husband as women become more educated and earn higher salaries,” said researcher Kristina Durante, Ph.D., in the study report.
“This is because a woman’s mating standards keep increasing as she becomes more educated and wealthy, which further decreases the number of suitable mates. More than ever before, modern women are increasingly forced to make tough choices such as choosing briefcase over baby.” Via
QUICK SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS:
- In college, if women feel like they can’t find a husband, they pursue higher-paying careers instead
- Single women who continually can’t find a husband will continue to focus on their careers instead
- And single women are characterized as being undesirable and/or unattractive for whatever reason
- ..or maybe women are too picky because as they graduate & become successful, they want more
- Educated (read: desirable) men are scarce as well, and the pool is too small for success
So basically if you aren’t considered attractive in college and you can’t really find your mate there, as a woman, you will try and make up for it in two ways, by:
- Finding a high-paying, successful career path to throw your energy into
- Securing a life for yourself that doesn’t include a man because you don’t have one
Wow.
Are those our only choices? A man or a career?
I am not disputing their findings, but why is it only one or the other?
SO ARE WOMEN ONLY IN COLLEGE TO GET AN MRS DEGREE?
That’s just insane.
It’s like saying that most women who go to college to get an education, are only there for their MRS degree.
Yes, there were girls I knew who did exactly that in college, but not all of us were there to marry a sugar daddy to pay our way for life.
You know, there ARE a few of us out there who want to do something with our careers too.
ARE SINGLE WOMEN WHO ARE SUCCESSFUL, UNATTRACTIVE AND/OR TOO PICKY IN SOME WAY TO FIND LOVE?
I wrote a whole post on how single women may be too successful to find love.
So, I partly agree but it isn’t the whole story.
I see this in my single friends, especially as we’ve gotten older.
(Although my one friend says she wants some 6’4″ guy who is skinny like a toothpick with nerdy glasses but has a million in the bank.
Talk about unrealistic.)
It does make a bit of sense that as you get older and become more successful, you will raise your standards and require any future mates to be just as successful as you are.
Heck, if I were single, I would be picky too.
As a woman, you (consciously or unconsciously) eliminate the whole pool of candidates below your social position, and the pool only gets smaller or creepier as you age.
You also don’t really hang out in different social circles.
Your friends and colleagues are very likely to be in the same social stratosphere as you are, and you won’t be meeting guys below or above that, so that doesn’t help either.
Perhaps all that free time goes into building up a career instead of hunting for some guy.
The other side of the story is that maybe there’s something wrong with the men too.
They don’t want to have someone who is more successful than they are, because they’re stuck in this stereotype that men have to work and bring home the bacon, not the women.
Maybe the woman doesn’t care that he isn’t as successful, but if he has other redeeming qualities, she’s all right with that.
Or maybe some women just WANT to be single.
Who knows? I’m not in that position, but it isn’t always so one-sided.
CAN WOMEN WHO ARE SUCCESSFUL CONTINUE TO HAVE CAREERS EVEN WITH A HUSBAND AND A FAMILY?
You’re damn right we can.
Why should the man be the only one to be successful in a family?
We should both be equally as successful.
It’s the reason why I track and care about my own savings and net worth. I’m expecting that he will bring just as much to the table when we retire.
There’ll be none of this: “You bring 75%, and I’ll bring 25%.”
My reasoning is as we make the same amount of money, and we should be able to save the same amount because we spend a common budget and share the workload of the home between us as well.
Okay, so maybe at this point you’re saying:
Well but that’s how it seems to work in my world.
Most of the women stay at home, or have lower levels of success to care for the family, and there’s more pressure on men to go out and do it all.
I only know of one woman or two who is different.
If you are not okay with staying at home all the time and relying on someone else to bring home the bacon, why not find another role model and change the story?
I have at least 3 women in my immediate and extended circle whom I look up to (secretly and not so secretly).
One is my mother. She brings home all the bacon, and is starting to resent having to cook it too. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is more that my mother raised 3 kids, got a second degree in her late 50s, changed careers and is now making 3X the average Canadian household income.
Second is a friend of BF’s. She is more successful than her stockbroker husband, and she has companies headhunting her all the time. In fact, she tried to quit once, and they handed her a very sexy 6-figure cheque in advance before she left as an incentive to “return whenever she felt like it”. She went back after 2 years to open arms.
Third is a friend of mine. She is equally as successful as her husband, paid off her house in 3 years of starting her new business, and had 2 kids to boot.
As you can see, what you see in your own situation is not necessarily the story out there.
Don’t like it? Change the narrative. Find another way.
