What you describe may be the case among your children and friends, but the national trend is closer to what I described. Perhaps more visible in liberal areas and less in conservative ones, but still a national trend among this generation. And LGBTQ people might or might not want families, careers and a professional life, just as straight cis folks might or might not.
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This begs the question. What will your daughter and her friends be willing to compromise, as some have suggested is necessary to bag the in-demand, non-traditional male?
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Who said something about non traditional male? And why do you think traditional males donât want smart, professional wives? And what isâtraditional maleâ? Letâs not stereotype men as someone who thinks womenâs place should be in the kitchen. In fact, men seem to prefer to date smart women. Those women are looking for young men politically in the center with good balance of education, ambitions and positive outlook on life.
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What is a non-traditional male? Iâve got two lovely, smart sons who hold progressive political views and respect women. Does that make them non-traditional?
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Our son certainly does. When he first mentioned his current GF his words were " She is the smartest person I know". Prior to that he mentioned several dates who were âfineâ but ânot very deepâ.
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I agree!
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I agree. What I was attempting to do was to distinguish between the gender divide ideologies. There are men who do like the patriarchal norms. I chose to use âtraditionalâ as my descriptor. Men who embrace women as people with autonomy as ânon-traditionalâ. Perhaps there are better phrases. Iâm open to hearing them.
Yes. I have a wonderful son and I consider him to be ânon-traditionalâ. Heâs in his 20s, in a long term relationship with a very intelligent, accomplished young woman.
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In case it wasnât clear, my post is tongue-in-cheek. I am not hoping for a Creamerie like scenario. I actually care a lot about the current state of ideological polarization in the US (and apparently many other countries). I am worried that it will lead to more violence eventually (but that is probably for the politics forum).
It is also interesting and concerning to me that it runs along gender lines. But of the many ways that polarization can negatively impact our culture, I just donât see a clear path by which the uncompromising progressive women or uncompromising conservative men leads to poor outcomes for children except possibly in the case of couples who marry despite their diametrically opposed views on gender roles and there is a lot of strife, anger, and disappointment in the marriage. Indeed, the unhappiest children I know are those who grew up in acrimonious households. Otherwise given that this gender divide is recent, it seems like a huge leap to assume that it will lead to more of the type of single parent families that struggle to raise happy, healthy children.
I thought a premise (which I donât agree with) that was posted earlier is that women care about finding a partner who is wealthy, educated, and tall while men care are less picky and care more about looks? I donât remember anyone talking about intelligence as a factor sought by either sex, but I may have missed it. Personally, I donât know any men who want their women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen but perhaps that says more about my social circle than anything else.
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Reading through many of these posts reminds me of when I used to follow a dating blog. The blog author would talk about how many of his clients would indicate that they wanted someone who was at least 6â tall, had a 6-figure income, was a particular race, a particular religion, had a certain level of education, a certain (fairly high) level of fitnessâŠand this was just to go on a date. Then these same clients would lament about how there werenât any good folks available for them for a long-term partnership. The answer wasâŠcompromise. Maybe the person was 5â9", made a sufficient income to support themselves and put some money aside, was the same religion, and relatively fit. These were all options that would greatly expand the pool of available folks for which to find compatibility (and folks can discuss whether thatâs political, intellectual, communication style, etc). The more requirements/expectations one has, the smaller the potential pool of options.
Of my college friends and I, we are now all married. But everyone married someone who in some way did not âmeetâ the original dating criteria, whether that was height, church attendance, voting practices, or whatever. But everyone is still married and feels that their lives are enriched by the presence of their spouses. And all of the individuals in question are probably within the 25-75th percentile of normal/center, i.e. not extremists. The issues where thereâs a bigger divide between the members of the couple are ones that either are not discussed regularly and/or donât impact regular, everyday life 99% of the time.
I suspect that this political gender divide will be an area where people will realize which issues donât really impact their lives and which ones do. People who find that they enjoy the company of someone else and that it enriches their lives, but they differ on issues that donât impact their everyday lives, are likely to be the ones who âcompromise.â People who hold extreme views and who are more the âmy way or the highwayâ line of thinking are those who are likely to end up without a partner.
And though there can be headaches with respect to differences in parenting styles, I will still say that the presence of 2 parents in a household is extremely helpful for the PARENTS. When someone needs a break, or has just had it, etc, thereâs someone to tag team with. There are amazing single parents who do an incredibly job raising terrific kids, but I strongly suspect that they would have found it easier ON THEMSELVES if they had a compatible partner with whom to parent.
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Most of Europe heavily subsidizes daycare for young children and has fertility below replacement level; the same is true of South Korea. It would be difficult to prove empirically that the presence of even heavily subsidized daycare has any impact on fertility rates.
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It does sound like some women want a partner who is educated, ambitious (i.e. potentially wealthy in the future) and positive (i.e. motivated to be successful) and not necessarily liberal. Many presumably end up compromising on the âtallâ requirement (or limiting it to âtaller than meâ) given the relatively small percentage of men who are over 6ft.
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History is full of change. The overarching theme has been patriarchy. Throughout history, men have considered women as property, as less-than, as breeders, as something to be given away to other men, as someone to be shunned in some cases. Itâs early in the history of women demanding rights, if you view it in a larger context. We are still in the negotiation stage, and change is difficult. Some people will say that the advent of women in the workplace was the beginning of the end of our society ⊠while others will say that it was the beginning of a positive change for women. There were always women in the workforce out of necessity, lest their families starve, but they were not on an equal footing with men. When women had an epiphany during the war, some chose not to return to a traditional role that did not fit them. So many societal changes followed, and some of it has been messy. But overall, the majority of women want to be treated as people with autonomy over themselves and their futures. Itâs still a work in progress, and the pain of change is still being felt by some. But the forward motion is not going to be stopped, so those who arenât willing to accept the change will eventually find themselves with less and less company. We are talking about a profound change in how women are willing to be treated. If it comes with a downside for our population, that may be a necessary step in the evolution of society to one that doesnât discriminate on the basis of gender.
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Interesting that many of the loudest critics of creating some semblance of gender balance in colleges are now also complaining about the increasing incompatibility between males and females in society.
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For the young men I mentioned above, it came to realizing a partnership isnât âshe takes care me of me and produces children for me, I do whatever I want but make sure she has money for groceriesâ which they saw as traditional/conservative - they reluctantly came to realize thereâs nothing Christian in not knowing how to use the washing machine and expecting your wife to be your mom. They changed in their way of thinking about women, partnership, etc.
One insisted he knew what ânormalâ women wanted (no responsibilities, a husband who frees them from that burden by making all decisions) and frankly became quite unpleasant.
College-educated women will find college-educated men to live and partner with - they donât have to be liberal but must share a basic understanding that women are people too, respect their personal&physical autonomy, etc.
The man may be a centrist politically, this ^ isnât radical.
Btw housework chores are now a leading cause of break ups (ie., guys who donât step up). Again, nothing leftist/radical 
In Europe, there was a correlation between birth rate and day care. Germany, with its half school days and social reputation that working women were âblack crowsâ fared much less well than France with a 3-year 'paid â (ok just $600/mo butâŠ) parental leave and free high quality public preschools in every town or neighborhood.
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Given the highly asymmetric college attendance and graduation rates between men and women, that cannot hold true, assuming an equal percentage wanting opposite sex partners. Some fraction of college educated women, perhaps up to a third, will not find college educated men as partners.
I think up to a third isnât that bad.
Half arenât likely straight and 15% singles wouldnât shock me. (It may not be their goal nor pleasant but it wouldnât be a huge problem.)
My kid at age 14 was shocked when I explained the word âfriend-zonedâ to him. It hadnât occurred to him to treat girls differently depending on their gender or attractiveness (heâs never been interested in dating). I said that women arenât some other species, theyâre people. It turns out that when you treat them like regular people and not aliens or objects, youâll find yourself forming good relationships. He has great platonic female friends.
So people are attracted to other people based on a host of factors, but one prerequisite I argue should be essential is that they treat everyone else as fully fledged humans regardless of gender/status/etc. If someone â whether they be a conservative man or a liberal woman or whatever â doesnât treat friends or potential partners as fully fledged humans with all the accompanying rights, I donât think they deserve those relationships.
If itâs mutually agreeable for one to stay home and tend the house and children, and the other to be the breadwinner, more power to them. But theyâd better agree on it. If thereâs a mismatch, they can compromise or not pair up. But I donât think anyone should compromise on retaining their full human rights. So folks who want different rights for other people might find their options limited. If youâre cool with everyone having full rights? Great, Iâm sure thereâs someone out there who floats your boat and vice versa.
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But thatâs not what I meant.
Suppose 25% of men and women were not interested in opposite sex partners, for whatever reason. But with about 50% more women entering and completing college than men, that means a third of women who were interested in finding male college graduates being unable to do so.
Using numbers, letâs suppose a college has 1500 women and 1000 men. After discounting the 25% from each, thatâs 1125 women and 750 men looking for opposite sex partners, so clearly a mismatch at that college. But these percentages hold nationally, so nationwide there will be a shortage of college educated men.
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Both of my daughters did. D1 has children with her spouse; D2 is planning children in the near future. Both Ds will continue to prioritize their careers since they are in a profession that requires many, many years of education, training and sacrifice.
D1 met her husband at physics conference while she was still in undergrad. He had just finished his PhD. They dated others, had serious relationships with other people, lived on different continents for half a decade, but never lost touch. They married 8 years after their first meeting. Both lead very busy, very demanding professional lives.
D2 met her husband using a dating app. She didnât filter for political views, but she was picky about who she met and who got a second date. Her husband has a feminist, very politically active [liberal] mother and is completely undisturbed but the fact that his wife will out-earn him by 3 to 1. If push comes to shove, heâll be the SAH parent.
BTW, all 4-- daughters and their spouses have terminal (doctoral) graduate degrees. If that makes a difference.
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