Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?[W:771]

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

AlbqOwl said:

To an extent, if I understand what you are saying here, I probably agree. As I previously posted, I have probably been married, to the same guy, for more years than most of you are old. And we've had just about every scenario you can think of thrown at us in all that time, but we got through it, and we are still best friends, companions, and very much in love. But. . . .even though I have worked most of those years that we were married, we had a traditional marriage because we both wanted it that way. He was the chief bread winner and head of household; I was the heart of the home and supplemented our income while arranging my life that I could also be there for the kids when they needed a parent. People have been engaging in marriage for a very long time now, and many have figured out how to make it work to everybody's satisfaction.

I could add that there was a year or so in there that he tried to retire and stay home and be a house husband. I had a great paying job with long, demanding hours, and that sounded great to me. I always figured I would have it made if I just had a good wife. But we found out we were both uncomfortable switching roles like that. It just didn't feel right. We just aren't wired the same.

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Now of course you can correct me, and I will gladly admit error in a couple of decades should my wife and I be divorced, but as far as I can tell now, we're really committed and take our marriage very seriously, yet we're not living traditional gender roles. She's very ambitious and is soon going to make her PhD, and I have agreed to stay at home and work half-time at best, taking care of our little daughter, to allow her to go on with her carreer.

Now that's never been a matter of dispute between the two of us. She's much more ambitious than I am, plus I totally love children and have certain health problems that probably make me more efficient at home than as major bread winner. I've never seen my goal of life in status or power anyway, but I'd be really proud if I manage to bring up our kids well.

Neither my wife nor I consider our marriage a limited companionship, but are very traditional about the "til death do us part" thing. So yeah, maybe we're not statistically the norm, and I certainly don't judge other people for their choices, but I don't think roles diverting from traditional roles necessarily mean limited, not-so-serious relationships.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

AlbqOwl said:

I take a more pragmatic view. Men also rise to the higher levels here much more than the women too - UNLESS - the woman forgoes a family and children and is 100% career oriented at the same level many men are. When she is, there is little difference between the genders here in the USA.

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There is little difference at the mean, but there is a big difference the further you move from the mean.

There is a common complaint that the teaching of math is done in such a manner that it is made interesting to boys and discourages girls. All sorts of liberal education theorists are trying to concoct ways of teaching math so that it isn't racist or sexist. What they don't talk about is that if their hypothesis were true we should see boys outperforming girls, all boys. That's not what we see. What we see is that the highest performing students tend to be boys and that the worst performing students tend to be boys.

We see women complaining about a "Patriarchy" which results in a lot of top male scientists, top lawyers, top business leaders, etc but they don't point to the higher rates of male failure as we see in crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, living on the streets.

Males and females are near equal near the mean but the more we move away from the mean, in both directions, the more male variance we see.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

When I was getting my formal education, 'socialization' consisted of passing notes in class until you got caught, playing together at recess, and, when we were older, sock hops in the gymnasium. Otherwise we went to Brownies or Sunday School or played together in the neighborhood for socialization. Class time was NOT for socialization of any kind. It was all business developing reading comprehension and love of reading, writing, and mastering history, English, science, and math with some P.E. thrown in there and some opportunities for music or art or drama or debate and similar pursuits and some opportunity to learn marketable skills - typing, computers, bookkeeping, home-ec, shop, languages etc. When I hear somebody suggest that school is for socialization of children, I want to scream!! In my opinion that is one reason public education is so screwed up anymore.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

German guy said:

. . that doesn't mean women who want to have both carreer and family should be disadvantaged towards men who want to have both.

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Single, childless women in the major metropolitan areas of the US now earn more than their single, childless male counterparts. There is no sex discrimination.

Married women start to slip in comparison to men. Married mother slip even more. None of that seems to be discrimination. Married couples engage in specialization within their lives. There is a "married man wage premium" which shows that married men tend to earn more than single men and their rate of pay increases is larger too. This could be because of the type of men who get married or it could be because of specialization within the marriage.

For married women and mothers who are in the workforce, their competition is these married and single men, as well as single women. This is very likely an issue of time management. Unless the married woman's husband is filling the mirror role of the married man's wife, the working married woman is not as likely to devote as much time to career performance as the married man and that will show in how quickly she progresses up the ladder.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

AlbqOwl said:

LOL. Okay you're a statist, but an honest one. I'm a pragmatist and look for what works well and what makes people happiest. So long as women have the choice of devoting her life to a career or devoting her life to making a home for a husband and children or splitting her energies between the two as I have done, I just don't see a problem for her, and I don't think standards of performance should be lowered to accommodate her. But that's just me.

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Hey, I totally respect your opinion ... I just find it funny that I used to view myself as a pragmatist too, and so far considered general disregard of state intervention as a very ideological thing. Probably you do the same thing from the other side.

Anyway, even when I maintain the position that free markets are a good thing, I could say that the work housekeepers (usually wifes) are doing is not paid enough in our society. It's mothers who raise and educate the kids in traditional families, and their work is an invaluable benefit for society, even one that could be measured financially. How much taxpayer money is wasted because some mothers didn't raise their children well, and how much is saved, because many others did good jobs? The investment made in good education can be measured in dollars when it comes to school and university education, but isn't it the mother's work who laid the foundation for all that?

So in a truly free market, every mother should be compensated for her good work financially, in theory. And not just by the moods of her husband, as families are running on a communist system.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

Gathomas88 said:

So? Stop trying to rationalize the impacts of zero tolerance education with all of this "boys deserve to get in trouble" crap then. Stop trying to defend a clearly failed and ineffective system simply because it gives you an excuse partake in flamebaiting misandrist hackery.

I fail to see how this is a hard concept, Sangha. :lol:

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I called zero tolerance a right wing idea. How in the world do you think that means I rationalized it?

It's not a hard concept, G.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

German guy said:

However, I'd argue that way too often, employers and laws don't take those into account enough who want to live a different model, IMO. Sure, it's biological reality that only women can bear and give birth to a child, but that doesn't mean women who want to have both carreer and family should be disadvantaged towards men who want to have both.

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They don't have to, they are paying people based on how well they do at their company, not on people's lifestyle choices. Women typically make less because they work less, they take more time off, etc. It is a biological reality that women bear children, but they don't get extra credit in the business world because of it. Women tend to take more time off to have children, they tend to work less when they have children, especially young children and they tend to take off more time to care for their children. As such, they get paid less than a man who doesn't do any of that. A childless woman who puts in every bit as much time and effort as a man should, and does, get every bit as much money.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

RiverDad said:

Single, childless women in the major metropolitan areas of the US now earn more than their single, childless male counterparts. There is no sex discrimination.

Married women start to slip in comparison to men. Married mother slip even more. None of that seems to be discrimination. Married couples engage in specialization within their lives. There is a "married man wage premium" which shows that married men tend to earn more than single men and their rate of pay increases is larger too. This could be because of the type of men who get married or it could be because of specialization within the marriage.

For married women and mothers who are in the workforce, their competition is these married and single men, as well as single women. This is very likely an issue of time management. Unless the married woman's husband is filling the mirror role of the married man's wife, the working married woman is not as likely to devote as much time to career performance as the married man and that will show in how quickly she progresses up the ladder.

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You got all pissed off at me earlier for stating the exact same facts you stated here, just more succinctly. Weird.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

SmokeAndMirrors said:

You got all pissed off at me earlier for stating the exact same facts you stated here, just more succinctly. Weird.

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Feel free to link your comment, but the reason I and another poster were questioning you was your claim that women are being discriminated against in how they are paid. I noted that I was surprised that you referenced the single women earnings data because that's not really that well known but there is no data to support your claim that women are being discriminated against in terms of wages. There is a wage differential but not due to employers being evil bastards and stomping on women.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

Cephus said:

They don't have to, they are paying people based on how well they do at their company, not on people's lifestyle choices. Women typically make less because they work less, they take more time off, etc. It is a biological reality that women bear children, but they don't get extra credit in the business world because of it. Women tend to take more time off to have children, they tend to work less when they have children, especially young children and they tend to take off more time to care for their children. As such, they get paid less than a man who doesn't do any of that. A childless woman who puts in every bit as much time and effort as a man should, and does, get every bit as much money.

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Exactly. Leave the employers out of the equalization effort. If women want reform such that women with children rise through the career ladder as quickly and as highly as men with children, then these women need to take their war to their own household. They need to convince their husband to take on the role of the traditional "wife" so that these women can assume the role of the traditional "husband." This way they can devote identical time and effort to career as their male counterparts.

The trouble with this though is that men don't like to assume that role and women don't seem satisfied with these types of husbands, thus leading to higher divorce rates.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

German guy said:

Hey, I totally respect your opinion ... I just find it funny that I used to view myself as a pragmatist too, and so far considered general disregard of state intervention as a very ideological thing. Probably you do the same thing from the other side.

Anyway, even when I maintain the position that free markets are a good thing, I could say that the work housekeepers (usually wifes) are doing is not paid enough in our society. It's mothers who raise and educate the kids in traditional families, and their work is an invaluable benefit for society, even one that could be measured financially. How much taxpayer money is wasted because some mothers didn't raise their children well, and how much is saved, because many others did good jobs? The investment made in good education can be measured in dollars when it comes to school and university education, but isn't it the mother's work who laid the foundation for all that?

So in a truly free market, every mother should be compensated for her good work financially, in theory. And not just by the moods of her husband, as families are running on a communist system.

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I 'liked' your post because you present a solid argument and I like that. But nonsense. She doesn't pay hubby for his contributions to the family and she doesn't expect payment for hers. Her contribution is to take care of the necessary duties of running a home and family, and, if there is time left over, to supplement the family income hopefully in an occupation she loves. In a truly equitable household, if her income becomes necessary to the family meaning she will need to devote more time to it, then he gives up some of his free time to help with taxi duties, run errands, and help out with household chores. Millions of us have successfully shared responsibilities in that way.

It is the whole concept of traditional marriage. The man and woman leave their other families and join together as one unit--each their own personality and individual self--but one marriage that does what it needs to in order to get things done. You work it out. And, in my opinion, because the way most men and women are naturally wired, it just works out better for him to be head of household and chief bread winner and for her to be the heart of the home and the glue that holds it all together. When it works as it should, both can be the best they can be, will have chosen their way of life, and will be happy.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

RiverDad said:

There is little difference at the mean, but there is a big difference the further you move from the mean.

There is a common complaint that the teaching of math is done in such a manner that it is made interesting to boys and discourages girls. All sorts of liberal education theorists are trying to concoct ways of teaching math so that it isn't racist or sexist. What they don't talk about is that if their hypothesis were true we should see boys outperforming girls, all boys. That's not what we see. What we see is that the highest performing students tend to be boys and that the worst performing students tend to be boys.

We see women complaining about a "Patriarchy" which results in a lot of top male scientists, top lawyers, top business leaders, etc but they don't point to the higher rates of male failure as we see in crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, living on the streets.

Males and females are near equal near the mean but the more we move away from the mean, in both directions, the more male variance we see.

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I think that might be true now. I honestly haven't delved into the statistics and studies specifically about that. I rather think that wasn't tue again in my distant past when education was a local community matter and the world had not yet discovered political correctness and social engineering. My memory may be faulty, but it was more often a boy who was valedictorian of the graduating class, and certainly the boys were doing as well as the girls overall in all subjects. But. . . .boys were expected to behave as little gentlemen i.e. MEN.....and the girls were expected to conduct themselves as little ladies i.e. WOMEN. There was absolutely no effort to create equality between the genders and it happened quite naturally.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

ChrisL said:

That's not nice. Maybe they're in love.

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Maybe she's in heat.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

Gathomas88 said:

......... .

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Some of the things you say on this forum with regards to women's rights issues causes me to get this visual image of you as some fat old dude, almost bald with crazy grey hair , sitting around in his boxers and wife beater smoking a cigar and playing cards wit da boys. IOW, bitching because the world is changing and those dames are fagetin' der place.

..unlike what most feminists seem to imagine, it wasn't exactly like men were out there yuking it up while women suffered alone. Both "traditional" gender roles have their draw backs and limitations.

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What makes you think that this is what feminists imagine? It makes it sound as if there was some kind of envy for the life you imagine they imagine their men were leading. Fantasy

the explosion of single motherhood and divorce in our society, for instance, have not been for the better.

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I would argue that. I believe a child raised in a happy home with a single parent is better off then in a home with two where each are miserable. You sound as if you bought in to that 1950s Ozzie and Harriet storyline. We both know that wasn't real. Fantasy

.......... They also have not be in line with any sort of belief that men are "necessary" to female affairs.

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Men aren't "necessary" to female affairs. You couple with someone because you love them and want to share your life with them, not because they are "necessary".

Again, I find this to be somewhat humorous considering how pissy a lot of feminists get when you propose the idea that such attitudes could ever be turned around on them.

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There are extremists in any group. I, personally, have never met a woman that has this point of view. I personally, find not being thought of as incapable of carrying my own weight insulting.

Considering the fact that the vast, vast majority of divorces are initiated by women, and often for rather vain reasons, it is hard to deny that the institution of marriage has come to hold significant risks for men.

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Vain reasons? Such as?

Weak, effeminate, lacking self-confidence and assertiveness, etca, etca. Basically the classic "hipster" or "door mat" archetype, if you will.

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I do now and always have found intellectual men very sexy. Men who are balanced and have a little higher emotional IQ then the frat boy or construction worker archetype you referenced. My guess is that you would provide this guy as YOUR example of weak or effeminate. So maybe your definition is a little broad.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

AlbqOwl said:

I think that might be true now. I honestly haven't delved into the statistics and studies specifically about that.

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This is biology, not culture, that is the culprit here. We've always seen more male variance. More male success, more male failure. We even see it in mating patterns. Men risk more and do more stupid stuff to impress women, some men succeed and others fail and women are more risk adverse.

My memory may be faulty, but it was more often a boy who was valedictorian of the graduating class, and certainly the boys were doing as well as the girls overall in all subjects. But. . . .boys were expected to behave as little gentlemen i.e. MEN.....and the girls were expected to conduct themselves as little ladies i.e. WOMEN. There was absolutely no effort to create equality between the genders and it happened quite naturally.

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This is culture and biology. I posted somewhere upthread a link to a report about the observation that boys are performing better on objective tests and girls are scoring higher on their grades. Liberals and feminists have modified how grades are composed so that it is now measuring and rewarding something besides content mastery. When both grading and objective tests measured the same phenomenon, then that amplified the male variance. Nevertheless, back in the old gays, there were still a lot of boys at the bottom of the class, far more boys than girls, boys even back then had a higher drop out rate, higher delinquency rate, they got sent to the Principal's office more frequently than girls.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

opendebate said:

I would argue that. I believe a child raised in a happy home with a single parent is better off then in a home with two where each are miserable.

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Go ahead and argue that. I'll enjoy reading that argument. All you've done here is asserted a proposition.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

RiverDad said:

Go ahead and argue that. I'll enjoy reading that argument. All you've done here is asserted a proposition.

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Is this your way of welcoming me to your special little world

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

RiverDad said:

Go ahead and argue that. I'll enjoy reading that argument. All you've done here is asserted a proposition.

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Is that not what we all do?

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

opendebate said:

What makes you think that this is what feminists imagine? It makes it sound as if there was some kind of envy for the life you imagine they imagine their men were leading. Fantasy

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I agree with most of what you say, I'd just like to say that I've met feminists (two in particular, a female and a male) who were a bit ideologically dense IMO, insofar as I had the impression they're generalizing too much. That said, I totally agree with the vision of people valuing other humans as humans first, regardless of gender, and I think traditional gender roles are nothing but the personal, individual choice of consenting adults.

I would argue that. I believe a child raised in a happy home with a single parent is better off then in a home with two where each are miserable. You sound as if you bought in to that 1950s Ozzie and Harriet storyline. We both know that wasn't real. Fantasy

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Just having become a father of a little daughter, I tend to say that bringing up a child is a difficult task that's hard enough to do for two parents, and one alone certainly has a major disadvantage. However, this only means effectively "one alone" in practize, not necessarily a certain family model: When the husband leaves the upbringing entirely up to the mother, she's factually alone. And a single mom isn't factually alone, when she has grandparents supporting her, and/or gay flatmates, etc.

I'd just argue that raising a kid is a hard job that's better done by more than just one person, and that children need stable environments. The exact constallation, however, I don't think is so important. IMO.

Men aren't "necessary" to female affairs. You couple with someone because you love them and want to share your life with them, not because they are "necessary".

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Applause! Couldn't agree more. Marriage shouldn't be a matter of vastly uneven power distribution, or even "prostitiution" of some kind. It should ideally be on eyelevel between both partners, who, like adults, together share responsibilities and roles.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

RiverDad said:

This is biology, not culture, that is the culprit here. We've always seen more male variance. More male success, more male failure. We even see it in mating patterns. Men risk more and do more stupid stuff to impress women, some men succeed and others fail and women are more risk adverse.




This is culture and biology. I posted somewhere upthread a link to a report about the observation that boys are performing better on objective tests and girls are scoring higher on their grades. Liberals and feminists have modified how grades are composed so that it is now measuring and rewarding something besides content mastery. When both grading and objective tests measured the same phenomenon, then that amplified the male variance. Nevertheless, back in the old gays, there were still a lot of boys at the bottom of the class, far more boys than girls, boys even back then had a higher drop out rate, higher delinquency rate, they got sent to the Principal's office more frequently than girls.

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Yeah, I read that too somewhere: Males are more represented among the extremes on both ends. Also when it comes to intelligence: The greatest genies and worst idiots are more often male than female.

However, I'm not sure what conclusions that allows to draw from.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

German guy said:

Someone's not getting laid, probably.

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Yeah, probably those attempting to curry favour with the femis. We know they're easy, but one shouldn't take advantage. Hey, we've all slummed it at one time or another, but let's not go out of our way to celebrate our indiscretions.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

German guy said:

Yeah, I read that too somewhere: Males are more represented among the extremes on both ends. Also when it comes to intelligence: The greatest genies and worst idiots are more often male than female.

However, I'm not sure what conclusions that allows to draw from.

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The conclusion: when we see sex variance in the social realm, never assume that this is ALWAYS due to socialization.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

Oh, and in my observation, the most common reason for divorce were males not capable of committing themselves. My parents' generation is a living stereotype of guys who got a midlife crisis, abandoning and divorcing their wifes and children to marry some 15 years younger secretary, leaving behind their bitter wifes.

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

NoC_T said:

Yeah, probably those attempting to curry favour with the femis. We know they're easy, but one shouldn't take advantage. Hey, we've all slummed it at one time or another, but let's not go out of our way to celebrate our indiscretions.

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What are you talking about again?

Re: Men: Would You Marry an American Woman?

RiverDad said:

The conclusion: when we see sex variance in the social realm, never assume that this is ALWAYS due to socialization.

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Sure. However, it's just as misleading to assume it must ALWAYS be because of nature. Only intensive study can help solving that question.

My guess is that in most cases, both factors are involved to some extent.