The New York Times says that more and more women are having to freeze their eggs because they can’t find good men to marry. The NYT doesn’t think that women are doing anything wrong. They blame the men for refusing to commit. According to feminism, women who value careers, abortion rights, no-fault divorce, big government, high taxes, etc. are doing everything right. But does it work?
I thought it might be a good idea to help Western women to make better decisions with men and marriage. Although setting out boundaries seems harsh and restrictive, it’s actually protective and loving. If we want women to get to a stable marriage and children, (what they really need long term, after they lose their looks and youth), then we should be bold about leading them.
The first thing to point out is that the women celebrated by the New York Times are intentionally delaying marriage for their education and careers.
Another New York Times article explains:
It could be that the new generation of millennial women is delaying having children even longer than the women who came before them, as prime childbearing years are also critical years for advancing in a career. A recent study shows that the marital pay gap that springs up after a first child is born typically does not close if the birth happens between age 25 and 35.
Shannon Hettinger, a 32-year-old from Washington, D.C., said she definitely wanted children. She grew up in a large family in a small town in Pennsylvania and almost all her high school friends are married with children. But she moved to Washington, and spent her 20s deciding on a career. Now that she has one she loves — she works in residential real estate sales — she is not going to stop until she gets established. That means not having children for a while.
“I just want to build my book of business and see where I can go from here,” she said. “My whole focus is career growth. That’s my No. 1 priority.”
“Once I achieve a certain level of success,” she added, “then I’ll start thinking about a family.”
Ivy Gray-Klein, 26, who lives in Philadelphia and works at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, said she was open to having children but cannot imagine doing so until she is 30 or 35. She wants to feel settled in her own life first. Now she has three roommates, is paying down her student loans and is working to build a little bit of savings.
“I’m just really trying to get myself to a place that is solid,” she said by phone. “Having a child right now would be so destabilizing. Children just seem like such an enormous financial undertaking.”
As far as I’m concerned, once a woman reaches 30 , she’s actually chosen not to marry, and not to have children. Marriage is something that men are willing to do with women in their early 20s. They want a woman to commit and invest herself in his life early. They don’t commit to a woman who has spent her 20s running up debts, traveling, being promiscuous, etc. The pattern of selfish behavior that women get into damages their ability to be good wives and mothers later. And men know that.
But in this post, I’m discuss something that I think is responsible for women not finding good men: and that’s the fact that many women are not looking for good men. In fact, some women are very attracted to very bad men.
Here’s the first editorial about women and domestic terrorist Dzhokar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston marathon bombers.
Excerpt:
Mostly, though, they think Dzhokhar is cute. The Bambi eyes (looking right out of his Instagram-doctored photos at you!), the hipster facial stubble, the masses of wine-dark tousled hair — adorable! Impassioned believers have written “Dzhokhar is innocent” on their hands and plastered “Innocent until proven guilty!!!!” posters around their towns. An 18-year-old waitress interviewed by the New York Post vowed to have Dzhokhar’s last tweet before the bombing tattooed onto her arm: “If you have the knowledge and the inspiration all that’s left is to take action.”
[…]But the real cause of the Jahar craze more likely lies in something more primal and less pretty in the female psyche. I’m betting that women, young and old, are drawn to Dzhokhar not because he is a good-looking late adolescent but because he is a good-looking accused killer. He’s a classic “bad boy” of the sort to whom women are chronically attracted because they want to reform them, or minister to their wounds, or be the healing presence they’ve never had — but mostly because they find them sexy.
That article also noted:
It’s not surprising, then, that every homicide perp on death row who is reasonably attractive has groupies. Consider the handsome (and widely philandering) Scott Peterson, sentenced in 2005 for killing his wife and unborn son and throwing their remains into San Francisco Bay. The day he checked into San Quentin, he received three dozen phone calls from smitten women, including an 18-year-old who wanted to become the second Mrs. Peterson.
Some of the tweets and other fangirl comments about Tsarnaev were collected in this New York Post article.
Lots of Western women from the UK, France, Russia, etc. all picked up and moved to the Middle East to become ISIS jihadi brides.
Excerpt:
Western women joining Islamic State are increasingly from comfortable backgrounds and often well educated with romantic notions of adventure often quickly dispelled by the harshness of life as a “Jihadi bride”, according to a British research report.
Some 550 women from Western countries have left their homelands to join Islamic State, which has captured swathes of Syria and Iraq, said the report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College, London.
[…]It said female recruits were increasingly younger, some from comfortable backgrounds and often well-educated, and were playing “crucial” propaganda and recruitment roles.
That article is three years old, the numbers have more than doubled since then. The most common reasons cited for leaving are romance and adventure.
Psychology Today has some comments about why some women do this:
In her post, “Women Who Love Serial Killers,” PT blogger, Katherine Ramsland, offers some suggestions about why some women can be so attracted to, or hopelessly beguiled by, the most terrifying of human predators. At first, she provides explanations from the women themselves, women who actually married these dangerously unhinged criminals. Their reasons (somewhat elaborated here) include the assumptions that:
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their love can transform the convict: from cunning and cruel, to caring, concerned, and compassionate.
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there’s a wounded child nested somewhere inside the killer that can be healed through a devoted nurturance that only they can provide.
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they might share the killer’s media spotlight, and so triumphantly emerge from their anonymity, and maybe in the process even land a book or movie deal (an aspiration about as cynical as it is narcissisticand self-serving).
And this is even more interesting:
To simplify this work’s findings for my present purpose, however, let me begin by emphasizing that Ogas and Gaddam find substantial evidence from Web searches, posts, and many 1,000s of romance novels that women demonstrate a strong erotic preference for dominant men. Or toward what’s now commonly referred to as alpha males—in the authors’ words, men who are “strong, confident, [and] swaggering [as in “cocky,” and the pun is intended].” Unfortunately, what these descriptors often imply is behavior sufficiently bearish, self-centered, and insensitive as to often cross the line into a physical, mental, and emotional abuse that can be downright brutal.
[…]Moreover, in responding to the question as to whether some men, such as “serial killers, violent offenders, and rapists,” might be too dominant for women to accept, Ogas and Gaddam note: “It turns out that killing people is an effective way to elicit the attention of many women: virtually every serial killer, including Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and David Berkowitz, have received love letters from large numbers of female fans” (p. 98).
Women choose good-looking bad boys, because they think that they can change them:
The fantasy that seems to be operating in such devotees, and that constitutes the plot of virtually all erotic/romantic novels written with women in mind, is that the “misogyny and jerkdom” they might have to battle with in such super-dominant males is only temporary. That it doesn’t really represent the man’s innermost reality. That his violence and lack of tender feelings is only the beginning of the story, and that their unsparing love, affection, and dedication can ultimately transform his character by helping him get in touch with his, well, “inner goo.”
I blogged before about feminists going after pro-choice bad boys like William Clinton, Peter Strzok, Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Harvey Weinstein, etc. These men support selfish policies like abortion and no-fault divorce. Women seem to not understand that men who support selfishness as policy might actually BE selfish in their own lives. Men who are able to commit and raise children are not pro-abortion and pro-divorce. Those are the men who women should be pursuing, and during their early-to-mid 20s.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
This is a true test of our times, families aren’t valued highly anymore and the unity of the family that used to be the pillar of the western world is divided.
Less family wealth is one of the consequences – The selfishness of former generations leave the next one without a legacy to carry on, nothing to build upon and nurture for the future. The path society is going down is a dark, narrow, one.
This is mere symptoms of a false freedom narrative: “Set yourself free first and do what you want, what could go wrong?”.
Thank you for a great article!
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Pardon the essay.
Why does the underlying narrative remind me of Disney’s “listen to your heart”?
You are correct that many women are attracted to bad boys. (Nearly two decades ago, my younger brother, not a Christian, sent me a book provocatively titled, “Nice Guys Don’t Get Laid.” It’s not about sex, but the main premise is that nice guys are confused with doormats or nice guys lack confidence.) Or nice guys put women on a pedestal or are desperate or don’t know their true worth and do things that signal that the woman could do better. On the other hand, Bad Boys seem confident, they use (and abuse) women. They even prey on low self-esteem women.
My brother was (probably “is”) a classic bad boy. He’d tell me of times he couldn’t care less about the girl and he was late. He didn’t give a hoot about her time. Dang it, it was his schedule and his time. He really didn’t give an iota of care about her, her time, her feelings. And yes, there are many insecure and low self-esteem women who read that as “Wow, he’s soooo confident, he’s important, he knows what he wants, he’s not desperate, etc.”
(I could go down the rabbit trail that for a term paper in psychology, I researched wife beaters (sure, domestic violence). It’s very interesting in terms of psychology, manipulation, control, etc.) But we can save that for another day. We could also talk about various examples of women and Bad Boys ™, but I think we’d do a lot of facepalming.
Since that time, I’ve read many a blog or PUA manual where the recipe for success was “cocky + funny.” I hope your readers realize that I’m not a PUA myself. (I am a Christian guy, a seminary graduate, now married for nearly a decade, who was abstinent. I did find it interesting reading to at least understand how other people thought.) Funny: because this illustrates wit and intelligence (although on the flip side, it also means sometimes the woman wants to be entertained). Cocky: because this to a degree demonstrates confidence, which means you are socially adept. Together, a man isn’t a totally jerk but is confident.
As a Christian, it is possible to have some positive aspects of these characteristics (confidence, knowing what you want, having a sense of humor, etc.) Additionally, women are attracted to powerful men (more later on this).
Many women want to marry “equal or up.” (If Mr. Darcy in “Pride And Prejudice” was instead Oliver Twist or Lennie from “Of Mice And Men,” would Elizabeth Bennett be attracted/interested? No no no, that would never happen. Mr. Darcy is very well-to-do.)
The more ‘successful’ a woman is, usually the more selective she becomes and her dating pool dwindles. (Who wants to ‘settle’?)
On the one hand, women don’t want to be idle, merely waiting for “Mr. Right to come along.” On the other hand, they don’t want to come off as desperate (nobody likes desperation) and in general, women like to be pursued. (Some women like to be pursued to a pathological degree — I knew one church-going lady who only got into relationships with men –even non-Christians — who were crazy about her and relentlessly pursued her, even when she was initially reluctant. Um, how is that not encouraging stalkers? How is this being discerning?)
So in the mean time:
Okay, so some women make bad decisions, like choosing Mr. Right Now or hooking up/sleeping around/friends with benefits. Unfortunately for them (and also for society), these unwise choices have repercussions. I know this is a terribly unpopular topic, and contrary to “do whatever your heart tells you to do/listen to your heart,” but it needs to be said.
There are some women who don’t sleep around but they keep themselves too busy (with career/job, extracurriculars, activities, etc.) that makes it difficult to date. The evaluation becomes something like “is this guy interesting enough/do I see enough potential that I would give up yoga/stamp collecting/cardio kick-boxing/Norwegian folk dancing?” (which I think is asking the wrong question)
I’ve known of some women (or men) who have such a full schedule that it feels like fighting with the schedule. (There are alternatives. For 2-3 years before I met my wife, I had some set activities and some flexible activities, and could always move my flexible activities around. Things like exercise [aerobic and weightlifting], reading, computer games, etc. were flexible — so I had quite a few spots in my calendar “just in case” and then plenty of back-up flexible activities.)
Between the minefield of issues/baggage (mentioned below) and fighting with some women’s schedules, it felt like running an obstacle course to try to go out with such woman.I think I’ve been alive long enough to know that 1) women can and often do work on their careers, especially when they are empty-nesters or there are viable paths to work part-time while raising children, and 2) where there’s a couple with a highly successful husband, they usually got married before the man became highly successful. The wife helped make the husband highly successful.
When you’re married, you’re on the same team. It doesn’t matter if one person is recognized more as the MVP or not — if the team wins, everyone wins.
From a Christian male POV, this is what I would recommend (and I’ve seen others say similar things):
0. Continue to grow in the Lord. Yes, sanctification.
1. Develop social skills. Be friends with lots of people. That’s also the dynamic of agape love in the New Testament. Not every one of the opposite sex will be a romantic prospect.
I’ve told my wife and others that a certain friend of mine used to be socially clueless. “John Doe? Why, he seems so socially savvy!” Yeah, well, I kind of saw him as a younger brother, and took him under my wing, and helped develop his social skills. He was an only child and certainly a nerd (he was top of his department in undergrad “top first” and proceeding to get his Ph.D. in that field at another prestigious university). A very sanctified nerd (he was a solid Christian brother), but a nerd. People can work on their social skills and become quite adept socially.
2. Develop discernment. Some of it is self-awareness: who you are, what you bring to the table, what is important and what is a priority (and what isn’t). Also, developing discernment about women because, frankly, there are low quality women who aren’t worth the time or energy.
Some women have issues. Some issues are not solvable by boyfriends or husbands. Even C. S. Lewis once wrote (in his “Four Loves”), “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets… Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, “Here comes one who will augment our loves.” For in this love “to divide is not to take away.””
The short of this is that some people bring out our best. Others bring out our worst. One woman might have certain issues that even the most sanctified man would not want to deal with. My guy friends and I (when I was single) used to have a code phrase to denote that a certainly lady had issues, and to romantically avoid such lady. And I usually used the word issues as it was more general than ‘baggage.’
Between #1 and #2, spend time with people and get to know them. Even men who are experts at getting phone numbers and dates say to not rush into a relationship (say like a couple of months of once a week/casual dating before deciding whether to be in an exclusive relationship).
3. Develop your sense of humor. I didn’t buy into the PUA’s who used negs on certain types of women. Instead, I focused on cultivating my own sense of humor, my own brand of ‘funny.’ It’s okay that not everyone finds me funny.
My friend above used to remark that my sense of humor was “sweet and friendly.” It’s sometimes about being appropriately funny and finding ways that work for you.
4. Be willing to take risks — calculated risks. Like talking with people, asking the woman out, etc.
It is a risk to take some time to have coffee (or ice cream or hot cocoa or lunch or dinner) with a woman. It may not develop into anything. I had older guy friends use the phrase, “Coffee is sometimes just coffee, and then coffee is sometimes the prelude to something more.”
5. A man should grow in his responsibilities as he is capable of handling them. Whether this is team leading or leadership or in wise administration or so on, whether this is serving the church or at work, or in volunteer organizations.
This also makes you a more interesting person.
I talked about power before. Sure, power could be wealth but most people (not just men, not just women) find pursuing a spouse merely based on wealth rather distasteful (e.g., accusations of “gold digger” arise). Power could also be influence, including social connection. Of course, power in the church is about servanthood.
There are also other types of power, e.g., the power of social connected-ness. Sometimes we call this ‘networking’ — because sometimes who you know may lead you to your next job.
I’ll mention a backstory — Harvard psychologist Stanley Milgram proposed the small world effect — also known as “six degrees of separation.” Milgram ran various experiments to see the connection between various people. One supposedly involved having subjects ask their networks to recommend a car mechanic in his area to Milgram. Or in another experiment, he asked 300 subjects to help him deliver a letter to a target person and each subject had to pass the letter on to someone they knew personally.
In any case, since the publication of these results, there have been many follow on publications and analysis. (E.g., Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Business Wisdom by Leonard-Barton and Swap: https://books.google.com/books?id=rhWdntj3eRIC&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=milgram+six+degrees+of+separation+auto+mechanic+-play+-film&source=bl&ots=leXXgpMqV8&sig=V5ZpNKbod5X2hEwa2_29WKjs67c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMwOib9KbcAhVB-6wKHZVtBkkQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=milgram%20six%20degrees%20of%20separation%20auto%20mechanic%20-play%20-film&f=false )
One simple application even within the church is this: even if I cannot help someone, I might know someone who knows someone who does or who can.
You become a super-connector … or a node. You connect to other super-connectors.
That has enormous value.
I’m not sure I’d say any woman over 30 isn’t worth marrying — it really depends on the narrative behind why she is still single.
I was open to the idea of marriage in my 20’s (didn’t happen) or early 30’s (didn’t happen) and only met my wife when I was 36 and we got married after my 38th birthday.
A lot of it was some optimism and not understanding social dynamics, psychology, and so on. I also looked a lot younger than I actually was and didn’t dress up. I also was doing full-time (>=40 hours per week) high tech work plus taking classes at seminary (eventually completed the
Master of Divinity in 7 years, including a two-year, part-time church internship).
I had a few jobs that treated me like a workhorse (I was a single guy, so my bosses thought I should be able to work 50-hour work weeks or 55-60 hour work weeks).
In retrospect, while I was in two relationships over this 7 year span, not having a lot of free time does make it very difficult to develop a romantic relationship.
I know some women who were very focused on education and/or career/demanding jobs and didn’t have the best social skills (that’s also a negative vicious cycle: there’s negative reinforcement for people with sub-par social skills i.e., people don’t want to be around people with inadequate social skills). And they’re very picky on top of all that — all of which makes it very hard for them to date (let alone get married).
I would say out of pragmatics that it is harder for BOTH men and women to change after they turn 30 — I know I had to change a lot. (We’ll chalk it up to “being a chaste bachelor/bachelorette for a long time and never having lived with a member of the opposite sex gives you habits, some of them good, some of them bad.”) Although I’d rather deal with that than having to deal with a number of other issues I can think of.
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