Huh. And here I thought it was us women who were desperate to snag a man and get hitched.

Guess the guys don't like it when the tables are turned, hmm?

maybe the idea is that they need to watch out for all these "crazy" single women living alone who will no doubt be up to all sorts of nefarious tricks to "trap" them

Watch Out, Known Universe! We Sense a Rift In The Space-Time Continuum Caused by Uppity Single Women!

from the article:

"What is it they say?" asks Gordon. "You can't live with them, you can't live without them? But definitely, men won't go out of style."

speak for yourself! she might as well have just said, "I single, but I swear I'm not gay!!"

both of these articles do a great job of pretending that choices for women are either "men" or "single"...which frankly, just isn't very creative, now is it?

i don't know off the top of my head what percentage of non-married women are in non-hetero relationships, but that has to also play a significant part in the drop in marriage rates since the 1950s. i guess they pretended to deal with this fact by saying that some women choose to be partnered while remaining unmarried, but come on.

People in families with a female lead household have a 1 in 3 chance of being in poverty (31.1% up from 28.5% 5 years ago) vs a 12.6% chance for the entire population according to the US Census Bureau. Pretty much every study every released says boys and gurls do better in a household with a father in it. We should be celebrating?

That depends of how you define "better", buffy. After my mom and I managed to get away from my biological father, we most definately lived in poverty. It was rough, but at least we weren't getting the crap beat out of us on a regular basis.

Studies (sorry, I don't have time to look them up right now) have shown that children generally fare better in families with two parents (which includes same-sex parents), but there are some serious exceptions. And from my POV, those stats show that we need to offer more support to single parent families.

Buffy, you're putting the cart before the horse. Smashing two people in poverty into a loveless, abusive marriage does not result would only increase the 12.8% figure.

Or, as manda points out, maybe we should focus on not practicing extreme economic Darwinism on single-parent households... nah.

Ugh. I was listening to a radio station on my drive to work this morning and they were talking about this issue.

The dude at one point said that the number was "alarming." The woman seemed more neutral about it. Of course they got the obligatory calls in from women moaning "I can't find a man!!!"

I wanted to vomit. This is LOS ANGELES???? I thought we were supposed to be liberal here. Just. Gross.

No-one is advocating smashing people into loveless marriages. I'm simply pointing out that the economic realities of female lead households in this economy where women don't earn as much as men and have obstacles to succeed that men don't naturyally, ande verifiably result in more female lead household poverty. The long and short of more women leading households is more people in poverty. While we celebrate the independence of women, it's important to realize the troubles that come along with this trend.

Buffy, I don't understand exactly what is meant by female lead households.

Is this where a woman is the main breadwinner or where a man isn't present?

Buffy: Good. Let's recognize the troubles that come along with the trend.

But I think the reason everyone here is being critical of your statements is that you've only been saying "recognize the problem" without hinting at what you see the solution as. Whether you intended it or not, most people here get wary when someone leaves that part out.

So, everyone is confused as to whether you're saying "recognize the problem of increased poverty in female-lead households" and:

1) reduce the number of female-lead households by getting more of them to marry and putting them back in the kitchen

or

2) take steps to correct the inherent problems in our economy and social setup that discriminate against single women and women in general.

Your second post seems to be leaning toward (2), but could you clarify?

The assumptions inherent in these articles are so annoying. A lot of women are single, you say? Well, that must mean they're:
A) Only single because they haven't found a man they can bully into marrying them, and are frantically seeking one.
B) A lesbian.
C) An unwed, cohabiting "welfare mom" with half a dozen "partners" and multiple kids.
D) A man-hating feminazi

Personally I'm betting it has a lot more to do with TIME. If you work 40 hours a week, you don't necessarily have a lot of time or energy left over to go cruise the singles scene. If you're divorced or widowed you might also have kids to look after, that's an additional demand on your already limited time.
I really think this trend has more to do with our current economy than it does with pseudo-feminist "don't need a man" attitudes. Everyone's got bills to pay, and not much time to play. It'd be interesting to see how many men are "choosing" to stay single as well. Anyone doing a study on that?

I'm saying neither, frankly. I am responded to the smug celebratory tone of this post. This space celebrates a victory when the reality of this trend is more problems for women and children, not a brighter, freer, more option filled future. The smug, we've come a long way baby, pat eachother on the back attitude in the original post and the first responses is just staring at your feminist navels. This trend hurts people. If the original article laisted the reasons behind the trend, and they were escape from abuse, etc. etc., then of course there is betterment of situation for these women if their economic outlooks might be damaged in the process. But none of that is in evidence. What is in evidence is a trend of women in poverty that had been positive (femail headed households dropping from 38.5% poverty rate in the 80's to as low as 28.5% - an amazing and impressive accomplishment during the Bush 1 and Clinton years) is now going the other way - and this is one of (not the only) but one of the reasons why.

I'm simply pointing out that the economic realities of female lead households in this economy where women don't earn as much as men and have obstacles to succeed that men don't naturyally, ande verifiably result in more female lead household poverty.

So the solution to that is not to end the wage gap, but make sure all the women are married off?

why dont we pay women the same as men AND provide free childcare buffy. and then people like you can stop blaming the women for living in poverty bc they dont have a male head. changing the system here is the answer, not having a "male" head of the household. jeesh

thanks jeff. far more succinct then i was!

How 'bout this:

"Watch out men! Women are discovering that they can function as single, seperate beings from you and if this keeps up it might get harder and harder for you to find a women who'll put up with your sh*t!"

And maybe then we'll see a trend of men calling into radio shows going, "I can't find a woman!"

*smiles*

"People in families with a female lead household have a 1 in 3 chance of being in poverty (31.1% up from 28.5% 5 years ago)"

Indeed. That's what we call the feminization of poverty. And yet, despite such misogynous realities, women are still choosing to put off getting married, leave unhappy marriages, and refrain from marriage altogether. That says a lot to me about the comparative allure of marriage.

BlogHer on the men and gays angle:

The media coverage I saw finally treated women with dignity on the marriage issue, but as usual, forgot to cover the male angle, as well as non-heterosexual couples. So here’s what I would like to see: is this the first time in history that nearly half (47%) of men are living without a wife? If so, what does that mean for them? Past studies have shown that men derive more benefits from marriage than women. Has that changed over time as well as marriages have changed with the times? What’s up with nearly one-third of men never getting married? How has marriage itself changed under these terms - more freewill to get married than compulsory marriage; second versus first marriages (and are there more of those these days than at any other time in history?)? How has increasing acceptance of homosexual couples impacted the marriage rate between men and women (i.e. – do fewer homosexuals feel compelled to enter into marriages with the opposite sex)? Would more people live with a spouse if gays and lesbians were finally given the legal right to marry?

I don't think it's really a celebration. It's more like jubilation that, haha, we're NOT the freaks, we're actually either the majority or pretty damn close to it. Society is going to move however it wants despite what fundies want for everyone, you know?

I mean, a lot of the women are single because their husbands have died. A bunch are single because they've gotten divorced, and don't want to remarry. A few are listed as single because their husbands aren't currently living with them. Some are not single at all, just not within the confines of the almighty state-sanctioned hetero marriage.

I will celebrate when a study comes out saying that people have modified their definitions of "family" to include all the people not in those state-sanctioned hetero marriages living in nuclear households, and that this new definition means fair treatment and better circumstances for everyone.

This is off topic, sort of, but reading that article made me think of something that pisses me off.

I hate filling out things about my marital status (or lack thereof). The options are always single, married, separated, and divorced. But never attached. I live with my boyfriend, so I'm not single. Yet that's the only option I can pick accurately. But I'm NOT SINGLE! I bitch about it every time, but people just roll their eyes at me.

I don't believe you can say women are choosing this. You have no data to back that up. Out of wedlock births are skyrocketing which means men can get sex and have children without all the overhead of being tied to a family. Bad for the women, bad for the kids, good for the guys. Of course some women are choosing career over relathionship - and that's great - freedome of choice rules. But is there more choice or less choice for other women in this scenario? And no-one, on either side of this conversation is blaming the women for being poor. But poverty and lack of a father are two of the top factors in whether a male will be imprisoned some time in his life. Here you get both as a result of this trend. While it may be positive for some, it id most decidedly negative for others.

Women are choosing this partly because there are few choices if that makes any sense. How many men really understand women to the degree I'd be compatible for the rest of my life? There are feminist men like my brother who understand women's needs but they are rare. Men and women often drift apart because they can't communicate with each other and this is mostly because men aren't under duress to understand what women are saying. I think this contributes to the lower rate of marriage for women and in a way it's a privileged choice. buffy, blaming women for being poor or stigmatizing poor women is never the answer. Poor women have the least access to reproductive choices. One of the best ways to prevent teen pregnancy is to educate girls and give them hope there's more to life than having babies. Out of wedlock births are on the rise but in places like Sweden and Norway out of wedlock births are common and not stigmatized. They don't live with shame and furthermore do not live in poverty as they are supported by the government.